[Rpm-maint] [rpm-software-management/rpm] Tags as an alternative to Groups (#632)

jengelh notifications at github.com
Fri Feb 15 12:48:28 UTC 2019


As part of the discussion about Group removal in distributions and/or rpm itself (https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm/issues/534 ), some passive brainstorming on the openSUSE was conducted (https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2018-05/msg00460.html ). The main points are:

* The `Group:` field's use is for an _explorable catalog of software_. That is to say, if the user is not looking for any particular software by name _just yet_. Imagine rummaging through the "games" section in search for something... “new”. Solitaire only is fun for a finite time.
* The `Group:` field in a `.spec` file only permits a single value. Packagers often have trouble deciding on a group.
* Likewise, that package would only be visible in one group, which led to end-users not seeing the package as they might be rummaging through a topically-similar, but still different, category.

```
atomiks.spec:Group:          Amusements/Games/Logic
atomix.spec:Group:          Amusements/Games/Board/Other
```

I therefore want to bring forward an idea of making rpm offer a new `Tags:` field, similar in style of how http://freshcode.club/ rolls it. People have also drawn parallels to the `Category` field of XDG `.desktop` files. That way, a packager could classify emacs as the jack-of-all-trades that it is, e.g.

```
 Name:           emacs
 Version:        26.1
 Release:        0
 Summary:        GNU Emacs Base Package
 License:        GPL-3.0-or-later
-Group:          Productivity/Text/Editors
+Tags:           editors mail-client operating-system
```

and put atomiks/atomix in both "logic" and "board", etc.
What do you think? Could you make such a new field available in rpm to us?

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