[Rpm-maint] Commit fafd8090 (Dead code removal)

[Michael Schroeder]

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 09:51:12AM +0300, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> OTOH: are there cases where self-obsoletes, or conflicts for that matter, 
> that actually match the package itself ever make any sense at all? At 
> least I can't think of any.

The debian folks often use a self conflict to make sure just
one flavor of something is installed.

Example (made up):

  sendmail:
    Provides: smtp_daemon
    Conflicts: smtp_daemon

  postfix:
    Provides: smtp_daemon
    Conflicts: smtp_daemon

That way you don't have to know in advance all of the flavors
of a capability. With rpm you need to explicitely enumerate them:

  sendmail:
    Provides: smtp_daemon
    Conflicts: postfix exim ...

Or you need to rely on file conflicts, but those will be caught
much too late.

Cheers,
  Michael.

-- 
Michael Schroeder                                   mls at suse.de
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF Markus Rex, HRB 16746 AG Nuernberg
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