#679 Actively discourage Group:
Closed: accepted 7 years ago Opened 7 years ago by taw.

Looking for guidance for what to stick in the Build tag of an RPM, I started googling. I did end up here...
[https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Tags_and_Sections]
But it says nothing really on the topic of what to set your Groups tag to in a spec file.

Then I griped about the lack of guidance and referenced this page - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RPMGroup (before it had the deprecation alert) that was more helpful but still imperfect.

After I griped, I was informed in social media that "Groups" is now discouraged. So... I edited page you see immediately above, but I don't have ability to edit the page at the top of this ticket.

Could you guys please state something less ambiguous than "The Group: tag is unnecessary" -- Maybe "Don't use the Group tag! It's usage is deprecated."


I guess you meant "Group" in the title.

I'm really having a problem understanding where the ambiguity is here. And I'm not sure how it would be at all beneficial to try and list out what you could use in a Group: tag. Honestly I'm not sure it's ever even been defined. rpmlint has a list if you really want to have something to look at, but... Fedora doesn't care.

Group: is simply unnecessary. Nothing in Fedora uses it. RHEL5 requires it (though there's a workaround in EPEL5) and so to make it a little easier on those who want one spec for everything, it's not forbidden. But there is just no reason to use it.

I would personally be happy with saying "The Group: tag SHOULD NOT be used" once EPEL5 is end of life and not before. But even that is just part of my general crusade against pointless things in specs.

Argh! I swear to god I can't get away without leaving a critical typo behind wherever I go. Yes. "Group" (not "Build") I edited it to be reflected as such.

This is my point: Folks have a tough enough time trying to build RPMs. They then spend gobs of time trying to determine something like "What Group does this belong in and why can't Fedora give me specific guidelines? It's obvious they categorize things!?! Right?" Then, "Okay I will research what other people do... Oh my, it is all over the place. I can't see neither rhyme nor reason to it. What the hell? Why can't they just give me a list? 'Unnecessary'? That the hell does that mean? That YUM won't break? Sure. Okay, but I need a Group for this package. Because I want it to be complete!..."

Guys. Just tell people what the hell to do with "Group" already. The current verbiage is utterly ambiguous. It is specifically a non-answer. Tell them akin to: Oh! Is this RPM for EPEL5 for RHEL5 or CentOS 5? Yeah, Group is still a preferred thing, go look at this list here: <the page you just erased> But you are now building an RPM for something newer? Don't define a Group. Thank you, have a nice day.

:)

It doesn't help that tooling hasn't caught up... The template used when creating a new spec file with vim contains a Group: tag :-(

Yes, the tooling is annoying, and I've tried to get some of it fixed but people still insist on putting it in there, which is why I found no support for an outright ban the last time I tried to deal with Group:.

Still, I just don't get it. It is unnecessary. How is that statement ambiguous? Why do the guidelines have to be 100% absolutely prescriptive when it comes to this one tag?

Anyway, I've thought more about it and actually looked up the EPEL5 EOL date: March 31, 2017. Six weeks and one day from now.

So, since guideline changes aren't generally applied retroactively and no new EPEL5 branches are accepted at this point (at least according to what I've gleaned from talking to the EPEL folks), I propose the following simple language:

"The Group: tag SHOULD NOT be used."

It's no less ambiguous but maybe it will give someone the answer they're looking for. After F27 branches I can add it to my big list of spec cleanups and wipe it from rawhide en masse.

Perfect. SHIP IT! :)

Metadata Update from @taw:
- Issue assigned to tibbs

7 years ago

FWIW I don't think the current wording is ambiguous either, but +1 to changing it to formal UPPER CASE wording if that satisfies the reporter.

Metadata Update from @mbooth:
- Issue close_status updated to: None

7 years ago

Metadata Update from @tibbs:
- Issue tagged with: meeting

7 years ago

Well, there's no proposal to change it to "IS UNNECESSARY"; going from "is unnecessary" to "SHOULD NOT be used" is actually rather significant. Back when the change to the current wording was made (which, thanks to my being behind, was just announced yesterday…) I think a prohibition would just have angered too many people so I ended up toning it down. I'm hoping that with the end of EPEL5 there will be less opposition.

I will also add that this ticket is a great example of why saying that something can be used because someone might want it there and it doesn't cause any problems just ends up confusing the people who we're really writing these guidelines for. I know there must be someone out there who likes seeing Group: up at the top of their spec and wants to be able to build that spec on vanilla RHEL5 with none of my dirty rpm macro hacks. And I'll lose no sleep if I get to run a script that strips Group: from every spec in rawhide.

If it was not clear, I was +1'ing your proposal to change it to "SHOULD NOT" after RHEL 5 EOL.

Metadata Update from @james:
- Issue untagged with: meeting
- Issue tagged with: writeup

7 years ago

We discussed this at this weeks meeting (http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-1/2017-02-23/fpc.2017-02-23-17.00.txt):

  • 679 Actively discourage Group (geppetto, 17:05:30)
  • ACTION: Actively discourage Group in specfiles (+1:7, 0:0, -1:0)
    (geppetto, 17:10:33)

I went ahead and wrote this up. EPEL5 quite close to being dead and doesn't accept new packages so there's only small window before EOL where you could even hope to get an update pushed out.

Announcement text:

The main guideline page has been updated to indicate that the Group: tag should not be used.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Tags_and_Sections
https://pagure.io/packaging-committee/issue/679

Metadata Update from @tibbs:
- Issue untagged with: writeup
- Issue tagged with: announce

7 years ago

Metadata Update from @tibbs:
- Issue untagged with: announce
- Issue close_status updated to: accepted
- Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)

7 years ago

Login to comment on this ticket.

Metadata