[MacPorts] #38456: Port request: rpm_select (and other rpm port improvements)

[MacPorts]

#38456: Port request: rpm_select (and other rpm port improvements)
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  Reporter:  egall@…                      |      Owner:  macports-tickets@…
      Type:  request                      |     Status:  closed
  Priority:  Normal                       |  Milestone:
 Component:  ports                        |    Version:  2.1.3
Resolution:  wontfix                      |   Keywords:
      Port:  rpm rpm45 rpm52 rpm53 rpm54  |
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Changes (by afb@…):

 * status:  new => closed
 * resolution:   => wontfix


Comment:

 It is not as off-topic as it might seem... There was a real use case of
 using the open rpm format instead of the proprietary pkg format, so that
 one could make packages even on a "Open" or "Pure" version of Darwin. Thus
 exists the "rpm" port, which was intended to provide both rpmbuild for the
 "port rpm" command and the rpm means to install it afterwards. And some
 tools like apt-rpm or smart, to help manage those. Then there is the other
 use case, which is looking at RPMS for Linux but still on your Mac. There
 tools like yum and createrepo are useful, to avoid having to use a virtual
 machine for those tasks.

 But you are probably right about the number of ports, and those were the
 binary figures I mentioned: "I use it myself" (1) or "someone might use
 it" (0). But that's a different issue than the just the age or the most
 used platform of a software. And rpm isn't exactly the only port that
 MacPorts keeps myriads of variants of, just because it can't be decided
 which version to be providing. It would be nice if there was a real fix
 for versions of dependencies, so that port could handle things like python
 or db or rpm without ports. Maybe groups and subports can be leveraged as
 a better alternative than variants and select ?

 Anyway, it seems useless to rename "rpm" to "rpm44" just because the
 others have numbers in them.

 And it's all "rpm", so there is no way to install more than one and thus
 no need for a "select" either ?

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.macports.org/ticket/38456#comment:12>
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