Re: Lag between source and packages

["Robert G. Brown" <bob@xxxxxxx>]

I had written...
>>>One of the things I have noted is that there's a lag between the
>>>release of a product and the time someone packages it into an RPM. 
Jamie McCarthy added...
>>I tried to do my part to help out on this by making a .tar.gz into an
>>RPM, but something about the process still eludes me. The Debian package
>>format seems agood deal simpler to comprehend and use; I'm also playing around with ALIEN,
>>which translates from one package format to another. [...]
That's fine; since we're not involved in SANE development, support, or
propagation, it seems a bit gratuitous for me to build a .rpm (which i do
know how to build, in general). I have no trouble installing/upgrading
from .tgz's. I've been asked to assemble .rpm's for an OSS project I'm
involved in now, and then it'll be a real issue, since the.rpm you would
download from metalab, etc. would come from here.

John Beimler added:
>Another good way to build a quick RPM is to look and see if the author
>has the definition on how to do that in the tar.gz.  The file extension
>is usually .spec.  The other way is to find the source RPM (SRPM) for the
>package.  It will have the .spec file, and you can usually build the new
>version from there. If you do write/have a spec file for a package, mail
>it to the authors/maintainers of the package, most likely they will be
>happy to include it with the source, if works and is set up correctly.
Before I'd do the above, I'd write to the package maintainers to see if 
they HAVE a .rpm producer in the project, then volunteer my service on
the condition one doesn't already exist. While not having a .rpm for a
few days or even weeks may be annoying to some, having a .rpm that is 
out of synch with an established .rpm, or a production cycle which is
already in place is much more of a pain, sounds like an accident
waiting to happen, and can actually screw some people up.

>A really good package to look at for this is samba.  If you get the
>source, in packaging/RedHat there is a shell script called makerpms.sh.
>Hope this helps.
Not in this specific case, but it's good background info, thanks.

                                                            Regards,
                                                            ---> RGB <---