Packaging guidelines updates

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 08:33:47 -0500, Tom 'spot' Callaway wrote:

> 2. I also proposed an addition to the PackagingGuidelines regarding
> desktop applications. Specifically, I proposed to FESCO that all
> packages containing GUI applications should also include a properly
> installed %{name}.desktop file. Ideally, this file will come from
> upstream, but if it is not included by default, the packager should add
> it as a Source#:. For the purposes of this rule, a GUI application is
> defined as anything which draws a window in X and then operates from
> within that window. If you do not feel that your GUI application needs
> a .desktop file, you need to rationalize its absense with a comment in
> the .spec file.
> 
> This proposal was approved by FESCO.
> 
> You can find more information about this here:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingGuidelines#desktop

As examples for GUI programs, which do not match this description,
take a command-line utility which must be passed a file argument before
it would start and display something. 

As examples for GUI programs, which start within a window but would
be questionable if included in the desktop menus next to major
applications, are tiny special-purpose tools like panel applets which
also work outside a panel. Or a directory with lots of small examples
for some graphical backend library. While all may be considered
GUI programs, it doesn't make much sense to pollute the default menus
with entries for implementation examples, particularly not if they are
tiny and perhaps only demonstrate a single feature. If however, it were
a single complex demonstration program in an optional foo-demo package,
it would be debatable as whether it should not have a desktop menu
entry.

Comments in the spec file are useful in documenting packaging decisions.