Packaging/Review Guidelines change

[Michael Schwendt]

On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:42:11 -0600, Tom 'spot' Callaway wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-01-05 at 21:04 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> > Tom 'spot' Callaway wrote:
> > > As approved by FESCO today, the following change to the Fedora Extras
> > > Packaging and Review Guidelines is now in effect:
> > > 
> > > MUST: Packages must not own files or directories already owned by other
> > > packages. The rule of thumb here is that the first package to be
> > > installed should own the files or directories that other packages may
> > > rely upon.
> > 
> > What about directories owned by already existing packages, when the 
> > already existing packages are not needed for the new package (and may 
> > not be present on the target system) ?
> > 
> > Should a dep be added just to make sure the other existing package is 
> > installed before the new one ?
> > 
> > Or do we allow packages to install files in directories which are not 
> > owned by anything on the live system ?
> > 
> > Or should the shared directories be migrated to a central package like 
> > filesystem (or the equivalent for extras) which will own them ?
> 
> I'm pretty sure all of the FHS directories are owned by filesystem, so I
> don't think we'd need to add too much there...
> 
> The only exception case is where two packages use the same directory
> structure (outside of the FHS), but neither relies on the other one
> (aka, either one could be installed first, or without the other). Then,
> and only then, its acceptable for both packages to own the directory, as
> they both have the potential to be "first". This is a corner case,
> though.

The order, in which the two are installed, is irrelevant. Either one would
own the directory in the RPM database. And the one installed last would
set good directory ownership and access privileges.

The order, in which the two packages are uninstalled, is the important
thing. If the one, which owns the directory in the RPM database, were
uninstalled first, the directory would remain in the file system and
would not belong to any package.