User:Walters/Packaging VCS key proposal
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Executive Summary
This proposal is to add an informative comment to the Fedora spec files, of the form:
#VCS: <vcstype>:<vcsurl>
Example:
#VCS: git:git://git.gnome.org/metacity
Rationale
Currently spec files have a lot of metadata about the upstream project; however it lacks one of the most important, which is the upstream revision control system.
Adding this data will allow:
- Cherrypicking a patch directly from the upstream VCS
- Correspondence checking between source tarballs and VCS checkouts
- Automated build scripts to update the spec from VCS
- In the more distant future, reworking Fedora's packaging to be more VCS-centric (i.e. having a mirror of upstream VCS instead of series of inefficient tarball snapshots in lookaside cache)
Implementation
Because RPM only allows a well-known set of keys, this proposal introduces the key with a comment prefix, to ensure that older RPM versions do not complain. A patch has been [submitted upstream] however.
The key format has been influenced by the [Maven SCM format], however we drop the redundant "scm:" prefix.
Supported implementation formats:
git
The <vcsurl> part should be in a format which git clone as of Git 1.6.6 will accept, with the additional qualifier that the URL may have a fragment identifer which denotes a branch. Examples:
#VCS: git:http://example/~you/proj.git #VCS: git:git://git.clutter-project.org/clutter#clutter-1.0
Potential Problems and Enhancements
- Some packages do not have a direct correspondence between source tarballs and version control (e.g. translations come from somewhere else)
- This might be addressed with supporting several VCS-keys. Example packages would be helpful here. --Till 18:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- Problematic packages from the FESCo ticket: Amarok, Konversation: Source from gitorious, translations from svn, TIGCC uses two CVS repos and some directory --Till 18:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- There are a wide variety of version control systems in use, and it's an open question to what extent we should "support" the more obscure ones
- Everything for what patches are submitted should be supported imho. --Till 18:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- I would like the key to be #VCS0 to show that it corresponds to Source0 --Till 18:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- For non autotools packages that require some post processing, it would be helpful to be able to add a pointer to a specific post-processing script, e.g. one that is included as SourceXY --Till 18:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- KDE packages seem to have a create_tarball.rb script, which should be used probably --Till 18:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- A parameter to specify to include only certain paths from the repo might be useful. --Till 18:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- The maven format seems to miss important features like a way to specify a branch, tag or revision (when speaking about git). I suggest to learn from a system which fetches from SCMs for years: bitbake. There can be written
git://git.somewhe.re/foo.git;proto=http;branch=abc git://git.somewhe.re/foo.git;proto=rsync;tag=XYZ
Ensc 08:28, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Further Discussion
Unfortunately, some questions were raised here: https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/353 Wait until that dies down and then make sure those questions get asked and addressed here.
