[aur-general] oracle-instantclient-* and instantclient-* merged?

[Mateusz Loskot]

On 25 March 2013 20:16, Ike Devolder <ike.devolder at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 11:08:07AM +0000, Mateusz Loskot wrote:
>>
>> There are two sets of very similar packages for Oracle InstantClient
>>
>> 1) dedicated for version 11.2.0.3.0
>> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/oracle-instantclient-basic/
>>
>> - relies on .zip w/ binaries downloaded by user and copied into
>> location of the unpacked package
>> - installs into /usr - canonical
>>
>> 2) dedicated for version 11.2.0.2.0
>> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/instantclient-basic/
>>
>> - uses manual_download to grab .zip w/ binaries from Oracle,
>> but I doubt it works as Oracle requires to accept license
>> on the website
>> - installs into /opt - is this a good idea?
>>
>> Also,
>> - oracle-instantclient name prefix seems clearer than instantclient
>>
>> There is also page Oracle client page on Wiki which is based
>> on the oracle-instantclient-basic package
>> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Oracle_client
>>
>> I wonder if and how these two packages could be either 1) merged
>> or 2) unified, so they can be explained in the same article.
>>
>> Ideally, if they could be merged, but then it would be necessary to detect
>> in PKGBUILD if copied .zip binaries are for 11.2.0.2.0 or 11.2.0.3.0 and
>> future 11 versions, and accept all current InstantClient versions.
>> IMHO, it's enough to check if this is 11.2 or even 11.
>>
>> FYI, I haven't talked to the maintainers of those packages to avoid
>> generating noise.
>> First, I'd like to learn what are recommended options to handle such
>> split packages
>> of virtually the same software.
>
>
> It looks like both packages provide the same software.

Yes, though I don't know what's the real difference between 0.2.0 and 0.3.0
version of InstantClient, haven't studied its release notes.
Perhaps some users may want to install one or the other,
or both

> The /usr install is indeed the preferred way in most cases, i think here
> too.

Yes.

> The /opt install can be interesting if you want to run multiple versions
> of the same application next to each other.

Yes, I can't see any other reason really.

> personally i would merge those packages because they provide the same.
>
> when they would be merged the merged package should provide the last
> version. if it is not possible due to bugs or other problems with the
> last version it should be stated or claified when someone asks.

It looks they used to be merged, see @Malvineous' comment here
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/oracle-instantclient-basic/?comments=all

I haven't heard from Tomato, maintainer of instantclient-*, yet
but I asked in comment below instantclient-basic.

Best regards,
--
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net