Re: Proposal for python packages

On Wed, May 12, 2004 at 11:21:32PM +0800, Jeff Pitman wrote:
> Well, boost-python would never be python-boost, since boost is the main 
> system and the python portion is an "add-on" for that specific piece.  
> Same goes for the other -python packages.  But, the other packages are 
> now having a general tendency to be prefixed with 'python-'.  I think 
> this has been discussed on other lists previously.  But, anyhow, the 
> user really shouldn't be too concerned about the exact nomenclature of 
> packaging.  Since, once they get it installed, what it's named doesn't 
> matter.

It matters for packagers, especially for cross-repo packaging, since
you need to be able to put proper Requires/BuildRequires in your
specfile. If half the world does SuperPyFoo (upstream name) and the
other half canonicalizes this to python-superfoo, or because it uses
/foo as a site-subfolder only python-foo, you will have confusion all
along (just like in the case of PIL, where users overlook
python-imaging).

> The issue at hand is whether the user knows what their getting and 
> therefore the name should be something similar to the upstream package.  
> Nonetheless, lowercase and a python prefix in most cases would be a 
> good idea.  But, remember that this method will not be a blanket policy 
> used in all situations.

Well, just look at the perl cousin wrt to lower/upper case. Also the
"perl-" perfix argument cannot be transfered to python, just because
python is a better perl ;)

http://lists.atrpms.net/pipermail/repo-coord/2004-May/000307.html
http://lists.atrpms.net/pipermail/repo-coord/2004-May/000309.html

My recommendation (though not a strong one) is to leave the package as
named upstream. Or at least add virtual "Provides:" for the upstream
names, so that other packages with (Build)Requires: SuperPyFoo(-devel)
will not break.

BTW what is the situation with canonical naming in the python
community (aside from packaging)? perl does have a very strict scheme,
while the python community seems to have less a policy on that. I
think that the discussion about (re)naming in python should not be
carried outside the python community, e.g. if the names are "broken",
they should be "fixed upstream".
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net

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