[Rpm-maint] [PATCH 07/19] Add rpmpols struct plus some helper functions

[James Antill]

On Fri, 2010-02-12 at 15:23 -0500, Steve Lawrence wrote:
> >  If you are going to use rpm headers, use them and make them go away on
> > package removal 
> 
> We can't remove the pseudo packages on package removal.

 Well, you can ... but you don't want to :). Personally I find it hard
to believe anyone would care with targeted, and people using mls/etc.
should have some other way of stopping the removals when they shouldn't
happen IMO. But the point was more trying to do package headers +
"pseudo" packages is a bad idea, just pick one.

> >  if you want packages specific for policy, create
> > those at build time (and maybe use requires to help them not go away).
> 
> We don't want packages specific for policy (we'll respond to that in
> another email). We are only using the pseudo packages because we need a
> way save policy information beyond the life of real packages. I'm all
> for using another method of storing this information if this is
> considered polluting the rpm database, but rpm doesn't seem to have
> anything else available that has the ease of updating/querying, and
> adding a new storage mechanism just for policy seems like unnecessary
> bloat.

 Well if it's not going to act like a package, I think you'd want to
seriously consider just using the "parent package" for "registration"
with some other DB ... or something.
 But if it maps very close to a normal package, but with a small number
of additional features needed ... then I don't think you want to be
reinventing everything else just for those features (this includes the
whole pseudo package thing).