[aur-requests] [PRQ#5845] Orphan Request for opensm

[james harvey]

opensm AUR package follows Arch's philosophy of vanilla upstream
releases, when possible.  The AUR package's only deviation from
upstream is that it includes systemd support, which upstream does not.

Contrary to your statement, the opensm AUR package has functionality
for multiple interfaces, because upstream (openfabrics.org) has it.
Their functionality requires the sytem to have a opensm.conf file for
each interface.

What I think your complaint refers to is that the opensm AUR package
follows the developer's (openfabrics.org) way of providing the
functionality, versus the way Fedora provides it.  Fedora does it
differently for two reasons.


First, Fedora looked at it and said for most users, each interface's
opensm.conf file would be identical except for the GUIDs.  So, they
made an extra configuration file to a single opensm.conf could be
shared between all interfaces, and the extra configuration file would
only have the GUIDs.

It's not that I don't like that option.  I just really like Arch's
vanilla where possible philosophy.  The main reason I switched to Arch
is so when the developer changes something, you don't have to wait for
the linux distribution to adapt their changes to the new releases.
And, I don't think Fedora's "we don't like how they did it" philosophy
justifies a deviation here, when the functionality is there and works,
just in a way they wouldn't have made it.


Second, Fedora noted they didn't like when a user upgraded packages
that the user's multiple interface configuration would be overwritten
during the upgrade.  I'm not sure how Fedora handles /etc files during
upgrades, but we have pacman, so we don't have this problem.  When
pacman upgrades a package with a new config file, it writes to a
.pacnew config file.  The system maintainer is expected to handle the
changes, if needed, and there are programs such as Dotpac which can
help with that.


Please tell me where I'm wrong, I'm certainly open to re-evaluating my
position.  But, I think if you want a simpler way to run multiple
interfaces than how upstream wants it to happen, that's a dicussion to
have upstream, not in Arch's AUR.  I'd probably even give a thumbs up
to such a change, if it were made upstream.  There's no reason why
they couldn't have their /etc GUID parameter either be a single GUID,
or a comma separated list.

On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 4:30 AM,  <notify at aur.archlinux.org> wrote:
> jmsq [1] filed a orphan request for opensm [2]:
>
> Useful code for multiple interfaces gutted out of opensm.launch and
> never reintroduced.
>
> [1] https://aur.archlinux.org/account/jmsq/
> [2] https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/opensm/