Bug 2216754

Summary: rpm requires curl
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Petr Pisar <ppisar>
Component: rpmAssignee: Packaging Maintenance Team <packaging-team-maint>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 39CC: igor.raits, mdomonko, packaging-team-maint, pmatilai
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OS: Linux   
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Description Petr Pisar 2023-06-22 13:13:56 UTC
I discovered that rpm depends on curl:

# rpm -e curl
error: Failed dependencies:
        curl is needed by (installed) rpm-4.18.91-1.fc39.x86_64

I was curious why is there the dependency. I found this in a changelog:

+* Wed Jul 08 2008 Panu Matilainen <pmatilai>
+- 4.5.90-0.git8424.3
+- require curl as external url helper

and then I found bug #843693 showing "rpm --import http://...".

Is this feature and the dependency really used these days? I was under impression that downloading packages and keys from the Internet is a task for DNF.

Could you consider removing the dependency, or at least making it optional (Recommends instead of Requires)? I believe users of containers and Mock would appreciate it.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Fedora Release Engineering 2023-08-16 08:11:18 UTC
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora Linux 39 development cycle.
Changing version to 39.