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Bug 1654901 - RFE: rpm should support upstream caret versioning
Summary: RFE: rpm should support upstream caret versioning
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Classification: Red Hat
Component: rpm
Version: 8.0
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
low
unspecified
Target Milestone: rc
: 8.0
Assignee: Panu Matilainen
QA Contact: Eva Mrakova
URL:
Whiteboard:
: 1724418 (view as bug list)
Depends On: 1681093 1765187
Blocks: 1778685
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2018-11-30 00:37 UTC by James Antill
Modified: 2023-02-12 22:54 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

Fixed In Version: rpm-4.14.2-34.el8
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2020-04-28 16:51:12 UTC
Type: Bug
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Bugzilla 1777226 0 unspecified CLOSED rpm: Backport of caret versioning broke mock bootstrap chroots 2021-02-22 00:41:40 UTC
Red Hat Issue Tracker RHELPLAN-29914 0 None None None 2023-02-12 22:54:14 UTC
Red Hat Product Errata RHEA-2020:1835 0 None None None 2020-04-28 16:51:39 UTC

Internal Links: 1777226

Description James Antill 2018-11-30 00:37:32 UTC 
Description of problem:

 The merged upstream change adding caret support to versions should be added to rhel8 before GA, otherwise nobody will be able to use the feature for years.

 The Change is fairly small and should be easy to patch:

https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm/pull/597
Comment 1 Panu Matilainen 2018-11-30 08:13:42 UTC 
That PR also wasn't able to actually build packages with a caret dependency in them. We're not going to pull untested and unproven patches headlong into RHEL just like that.

Such features should be weatherproofed in Fedora first, which thank goodness is possible nowadays that the Fedora builders are no longer running on RHEL.
Comment 2 Panu Matilainen 2018-11-30 08:17:50 UTC 
Also being in RHEL has proven to mean absolutely nothing for ability to use, see bug 825087.
Comment 3 James Antill 2018-12-10 18:06:02 UTC 
You have testcases, if you want more then write some more. It's a small amount of code and if nobody uses the feature it shouldn't change anything (negatively or otherwise).

EPEL is still a thing so it's not going to get "weatherproofed" from actual use in Fedora until FPC doesn't have to split the versioning guidelines, which won't happen for years if you don't pull this into RHEL within a fairly short amount of time. Obviously when you've released an rpm that's already on a users system that has it then they can try it with copr repos. etc. ... but you can have that be possible tomorrow with f29 updates/etc.

So, from my point of view, you have two realistic choices: 1) Pull it into rhel8 and also push it into rawhide/etc. and get as much "real" testing as possible before rhel8, to see if there are any remaining problems, then people can start using it in Fedora next year. 2) Wait 5+ years.
Comment 4 Daniel Mach 2019-02-11 14:42:41 UTC 
The feature is not in any released version of RPM and is not properly tested.
Do you have any business justification why to implement it in RHEL 8?
Otherwise the RPM team would prefer to close the request on RHEL 8.
Comment 7 Panu Matilainen 2019-06-27 07:01:54 UTC 
*** Bug 1724418 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 8 Neal Gompa 2019-06-27 10:07:26 UTC 
Since my bug was just closed as a dupe of this one...

The Fedora Packaging Guidelines for snapshot versioning are in the process of being revised for Fedora 31 to leverage the new carat modifier for version comparison[1].

Currently, the proposed changes[1] assume that EL8 will not support this, and so there will be a fracture in how packaging snapshot versions will occur between EL8 and Fedora.

It would be great if this feature was backported into the EL8 rpm so that this doesn't happen, especially as EPEL 8 hasn't even launched yet.

By doing this, it will make it so that one of the biggest changes coming to the packaging guidelines will also remain compatible with EL8, supporting backports from Fedora into EL8 for years to come without having to do spec versioning rewrites or other weird things.

[1]: https://pagure.io/packaging-committee/pull-request/908
Comment 15 Florian Weimer 2019-11-27 08:28:25 UTC 
The backports seem to have introduced bug 1777226.
Comment 16 Panu Matilainen 2019-11-27 09:21:22 UTC 
Yes, the richdep check got mistakenly pulled in, and now reverted in rpm-4.14.2-35.el8.
Comment 20 errata-xmlrpc 2020-04-28 16:51:12 UTC 
Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2020:1835
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