Documentation-only packages

[Paul Howarth]

On Wed, 2006-05-10 at 21:18 -0700, Peter Gordon wrote:
> Tim Jackson wrote:
> > 1. Naming. "php-docs" would fit with the usual convention. "php-manual"
> > would be more descriptive of what it actually is. Preferences anyone?
> As others have mentioned, I'm in agreement with the "php-manual" naming,
> as libfoo-docs seems to be the documentation as a subpackage of libfoo.

+1

> > 2. Versioning. The docs aren't actually versioned as such, but dated. OK
> > to use date e.g. "20060421" as version number?
> Seems reasonable to me. Just make sure you note how you obtain the
> specific dated tarball if needed.

+1

> > 3. Filesystem location. %{_datadir}/doc/%{name} OK? Or should it be
> > %{_datadir}/doc/%{name}-%{version}?

%{_datadir}/doc/%{name} would be better for people wanting to bookmark
stuff.

> Why not just make it all %doc and let the RPM macro deal with that? :)

I think the only %doc stuff in this package should be docs about the
manual, not the manual itself. After all, the purpose of installing the
package is to get the manual, and if it was all %doc then anyone
defaulting rpm to use --excludedocs would get nothing when the package
was installed.

> > 4. Localisation. The manual is available in many different languages,
> > distributed separately. I am only proposing to package the English
> > version at the moment. This creates two issues:
> > 
> > a) Name - should the package actually be name php-docs-en (or
> > php-manual-en) rather than php-docs/php-manual?
> Perhaps you could make one big php-manual package, then make subpackages
> as needed for each language?

As the languages are distributed separately and could be updated at
different times, it makes more sense to keep them as separate packages.
Adding the language suffix is a good idea IMHO.

Paul.