[Distutils] Re: CPAN functionality for python

[Bruce Sass]

On Mon, 26 Feb 2001, John J. Lee wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Feb 2001, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> [...]
> > installers, Red Hat RPMs.  (So far my experience with Windows
> > installers is much more positive than with RPMs though -- RPMs forever
> > seem to depend on some version of some other RPM that you don't have.)
>
> Surely this is a function of free vs. non-free software as opposed to
> which particular packaging format you are using?

<subject to correction by someone who knows more about this than I>
I think the problem with RPMs is that they depend on a specific
package, instead of depending on the contents of a package.

e.g., If you have code depending on libfoo-1.x, depending on the
package that provides libfoo-1.1 will work, but is no good to people
with libfoo-1.2, the dependency should be on any package that provides
libfoo-1.
</subject to correction by someone who knows more about this than I>


- Bruce