Why aren't R packages noarch?

[Gérard Milmeister]

On Wed, 2007-03-07 at 00:14 +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 11:58:21PM +0100, Gérard Milmeister wrote:
> > Platform dependent files MUST be in %{_libdir}. There is no reason, why
> > noarch packages should not use %{_libdir}.
> 
> Reason is consistency with the FHS.
> 
> > Making R use two locations for its packages (thereby causing more
> > problems than it is worth) only based on whether a package includes
> > binaries or not only causes confusion.
> 
> I am personnaly used to the FHS, and to me the reverse is true: having
> noarch package files below %{_libdir} confuses me. noarch perl and
> python files below %_libdir have always puzzled me.
But whether a package is noarch or not does not relate to the install
location. You could also make an i386 package that only contains
platform independent files (somes necessary with sub-packages).
You have R packages with binaries (.so) files. These MUST go into
%{_libdir}. You have also R packages that happen to have no binaries.
Why shouldn't they go along-side the other packages. This seems to be
consistency to me. Otherwise you should split each package into two
parts: one that contains ONLY binaries and installs into %{_libdir} and
one that contains ONLY platform independent files and installs into
%{_datadir}. That would be consistent too.
-- 
Gérard Milmeister
Langackerstrasse 49
CH-8057 Zürich