Moving to a more distro/host agnostic setup for the canonical spec files.

[Yanko Kaneti <yaneti declera com>]

Hi

Here is a packaging/spec idea I'll throw at the wind to seek some
general reaction and possibly action.

Lets remove all the host/distro specifics that can found currently in
the spec.in files and move to using strictly defined subset of rpm
macros and techniques. Whenever the available rpm functionality lacks or
some extension is needed write new macros and include them in the
allowed subset. Maintain these extensions per platform. Distribute them
in the form of a package , say grpmbuild (or somesuch)

Along the way:
 - remove the requires and deps and rely on the hosts autodep, the
configure and pkg-config checks.
 - remove direct calls to rm, make ./configure, ldconfig etc. and use
the available rpm macros 
 - remove the various gconf schemas install interpretations and similar
scrollkeeper-update hacks in favor of appropriate  macros.
 - generally remove all the hacks and workarounds  e.g. all the libtool,
alpha, RPM_BUILD_ROOT != /  trickery


All this gives? Imho more maintainability and portability. It would
allow the person/vendor wishing to adapt the build system to his own
setup by just adjusting the necessary rpmmacros. It would also result in
less maintenace effort for the spec (you wouldnt have to copy one hack
all over the place). It would make the "tarbuilding" of a rpm from the
vanilla source a more predictable process.


So, do you think this would work?

Regards
Yanko