FPC discussed this today and agrees with the general idea.

We'd like to have the following clarifications made to the draft:

• Note that there are legitimate reasons to Require: php or apache. Something like this was suggested in the meeting "Only a PHP web application, which provide httpd configuration or specifically needs it for operation, should require php and httpd"
• Is there something that should be used instead of "Requires: php"? for instance, will the majority of cases just want to switch to "Requires: php-common"?
• Does "requires: php-common" not work on some versions of Fedora or EPEL (we heard that it doesn't work on EPEL5). If so, what are those versions so we can note that in the relevant places.

be used instead of "Requires: php"?

• a PHP library should requires the used extensions, ex: "Requires: php-date php-gd php-mbstring" (most extension are virtual provides of php sub-packages)
• C extension should requires the ABI (already in the current Guidelines)
• if no extension "Requires: php-common" is the solution
• for minimal version check, "Requires php-common >= 5.3.2"

Issue with EPEL-5 and php53 stack:

php53-common provides the same "virtual" as php-common (php-date, php-exif, php-session, ...) except php-common itself.

This seems to be fix in the others sub-package (p.e. php53-xml provides php-dom, php-domxml, phpwddx, php-xsl and php-xml)

Bug filed againt php53 in RHEL-5
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=831753

I will be AFK for about 1 week.
So I will take care of updating the proposal after. I'm also waiting feedback for possible change in RHEL php packages.

While php-common is a commonly used workaround, PHP in fedora >= 16 now provides '''php(language)''' which is designed for checking minimal PHP version. There is a bug recorded to add this in RHEL packages

Draft has been updated with current solution (php-common) and future one : php(language)

draft approved (+1:5, 0:0, -1:0)

Announce text:

The PHP Packaging guidelines have been updated to include guidance about when it is appropriate to have an explicit Requires on httpd & mod_php, how to handle explicit Requires on PHP extensions, and how to handle a Requires for a minimum PHP version.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:PHP#Apache_requirement
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:PHP#Extensions_Requires
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:PHP#Requiring_a_Minimum_PHP_version