It seems quite obvious that the existing .spec files from packages/rpms/rhel-*/ directories have not been used in years. They represent a considerable amount of work by David Sommers and other contributors (perhaps including a few patches from me?), but definitely need update. The contemporary version at RPMforge works quite well, along with a few minor patch files. I'd like to urge switching to the RPMforge format, ASAP.
Roadblock problems include: * Lack of or mishandling of necessary components for compilation under RHEL 5, such as: * swig-1.3.39 tarball * neon-0.28.4 tarball * Python-2.4.6 tarball * sqlite-amalgamation-3.6.13 tarball * Lack of useful patches from RPMforge, such as: * subversion-0.20.1-deplibs.patch * subversion-1.1.3-java.patch * subversion-1.6.0-pie.patch * subversion-1.6.0-rpath.patch (The one present works, it's just pretty seriously out of date). Other, less critical issues include: * The "RELEASE" management in the packages/rpms/rhel-5/Makefile probably should *never* touch the user's .rpmmacros, if they have one. As it exists, it overwrites the $HOME/.rpmmacros the first time the .rpmmacros is generated. Frankly, that .rpmmacros file should be .rpmmacros.in, and the .in file massaged to generate a $HOME/.rpmmacros. But the dependencies are.... awkward. Since .rpmmacros may be modified by other tools, such as GPG key handling tools, it should probably generate a backup file (if one does not already exist) and only then create a new .rpmmacros. * The "subversion.spec" file shouldn't be. It should be a "subversion.spec.in" file, and the new subversion.spec file generated dynamically. * I think that the "RELEASE" can safely be set to 0.test as a default. This allows local building of .spec files and RPM's without too much additional handling.
