On Friday, 29 June 2007, at 14:05:10 (-0500),
Tim Mooney wrote:

>  People writing spec files, or whatever packaging recipe format
>  eventually evolves, will write their recipes to use the
>  functionality that they know is guaranteed to be available in the
>  rpm command that users have available on their systems -- the
>  minimal subset of features that every rpm command supports.

I wish that were true.  But the unfortunate reality is that each
distro writes their spec files to use their own proprietary set of
capabilities and macros.  RHEL RPM's may not build without
redhat-rpm-config.  Mandriva RPM's frequently require custom macros,
not the least of which being %{make}.  Few people actually strive to
create portable spec files.

Michael

-- 
Michael Jennings (a.k.a. KainX)  http://www.kainx.org/  <mej@kainx.org>
n + 1, Inc., http://www.nplus1.net/       Author, Eterm (www.eterm.org)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 "[Heather Graham] is the new I-would-run-over-my-best-friend-in-a-
  hummer-to-get-next-to-her girl."                    -- Claude Nobler