[Mageia-dev] RFC: task-obsolete and README.*.urpmi enhancement

[Luc Menut]

Hello,

We have recently discussed here about task-obsolete.
http://www.mail-archive.com/mageia-dev@mageia.org/msg09762.html
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3786

I like the idea.
But I think that we need to inform the user about the package(s) that we 
will obsolete and remove on his system (and why: security, ..).
So I tried to use README.*.urpmi to do this.
But I found that currently, urpmi and rpmdrake don't handle very well 
optional README.*.urpmi (%ghost); they always display information's 
screen, even if the file doesn't exist.

So, I propose here 2 enhancements for README.*.urpmi (POC patch for 
urpm/install.pm, and task-obsolete.spec in attachment):

1) add support for optional README.*.urpmi (%ghost in spec):
This will allow to build this README.*.urpmi at install time in %pre, 
%post or %trigger only when it's necessary.
One use case from the recent past in my mind:
we have no way to inform users that still use nspluginwrapper + i586 
flashplayer on x86_64 (and only them), that this is now deprecated and 
they should replace the i586 by the x86_64 flashplayer,
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2146#c22
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2146#c25

2) handle README.*.(obsolete|deprecated).urpmi
In order to display informations about the deprecated or obsoleted 
package(s), I suggest to handle 2 new kinds of README.*.urpmi:
- README."nameObsoletedPackage".obsolete.urpmi to inform about the 
package we obsolete by task-obsolete
e.g. java-1.6.0-sun*, https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3101

- README."nameDeprecatedPackage".deprecated.urpmi to inform about 
package that we considere as deprecated, but we have no reason (no 
vulnerability, security, ...) to force uninstallation (task-deprecated?).

What do you think ?




-- 
Luc Menut
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