[Kolab-devel] Re: Fedora packaging

[Karel Volný]

Hi,

> [setup-kolab]
>
>> In an ideal world, it would be just a matter of changing a few globals,
>> like where the distros like to put the stuff, how do they call things,
>> what initsystem they use etc. and running the same script everywhere. In
>> reality ... I can hardly imagine it would work that way, but we can at
>> least try to split the steps into generic and distro-specific.
>
> I'd hope that even if distros start to diverge on their init systems, they 
> would at least provide common tools to configure them.

I don't want to be pesimistic but I doubt this would be the case.

Systemd guys seem to be working on the exact opposite of being compatible with the rest of the world - I even failed to convice them that if a compatibility tool is provided (`service` command) then its output should be consistent.
(I'm just looking forward when big customers start deploying RHEL7 then start screaming "hey, this command had one simple easily parseable line of output for years, through several major releases, and now it vomits pages of incomprehensible colored nonsense and our scripts no longer work with that" and I will just point to my report and say "see, I told you" ;-))

I'm not sure how long will the non-systemd ones have the energy to resist and hack around ... but however I sympathise(*), I have to say that it is their fight. Kolab upstream should provide just interface, if someone needs to adjust for different circumstances, it's his job to create the backend.

(*) I run Gentoo at home and I'm perfectly fine with OpenRC for my needs, and I also like FreeBSD (sad thing I don't have any system running it ATM) while BSD kernel is and will not be supported by systemd.

...
> Right. People don't really want to have to override their repository
> settings to get some alternative packages. Having distro-upstream support
> also makes a strong statement about the maturity and viability of software.

Nice to see we're on the same wave :-)

K.

-- 
Karel Volný
QE BaseOs/Daemons Team
Red Hat Czech, Brno
tel. +420 532294274
(RH: +420 532294111 ext. 8262074)
xmpp kavol at jabber.cz
:: "Never attribute to malice what can
::  easily be explained by stupidity."