Writing new book: "The RPM Reference"

[Andrew Ford]

I mentioned on the rpm-list almost two years ago that I was writing a 
book "Linux Software Management with RPM and YUM".  That stalled for 
various reasons, one of which was that the subject was just too broad.  
I have narrowed the focus now and am working on a book, provisionally 
entitled "The RPM Reference".  It will do what the title implies, 
provide a reference primarily for the rpm and rpmbuild commands 
(including coverage of spec files, macros, scripts, triggers, etc) 
covering rpm versions 4.4.2 (SLES 10), 4.4.2.3 (RHEL5, SLES 11), 4.8.0 
(RHEL6), 4.9.1.3 (Fedora 17 and openSUSE 12.2) and 4.10.1 (Fedora 18), 
and whatever RHEL7 uses when it comes out.  I have been reviewing 
whatever documentation, books and articles I can find and exploring the 
source code for the different versions (including the patches for the 
disto packages). There are areas, like SELinux policies, that I am going 
to have to learn up on, but I am hoping to have the bulk of the book 
written in the first half of the year.  Double checking the correctness 
of everything, especially all the compatibility information is going to 
take quite a while though.

If you would like to help with reviewing the new book, drop me an 
email.  I am anticipating having the first chapters ready for review by 
early February.

Regards
Andrew