Summary of the 2007-05-29 Packaging Committee meeting

[Jason L Tibbitts III]

Meeting minutes and full logs of the packaging committee meeting which
occurred on 2007-05-29 are online:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Minutes
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Minutes20070529

Executive summary:

The following drafts are now official guidelines, having been accepted
by FESCO last week:

 * Tweaks to static library packaging guidelines:
   http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/StaticLibraryChanges

This should be written into the guidelines soon if it hasn't
already been done by the time you read this.

No issues pending FESCO ratification this week.

Misc business:

* Guidelines for adding Users and Groups
  * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/UsersAndGroups
  * Serious fundamental issues exist in rpm that prevent any reliable
    handling of users and groups inside rpm scriptlets.  For instance,
    %pre cannot be allowed to fail, because it seems that it is not
    possible to abort an RPM transaction.
  * Clever ideas working around the tough problems would be warmly
    welcomed.

 * Fix incorrect information in
   http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/ScriptletSnippets
  * http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-packaging/2007-May/msg00116.html
  * scop will draft up various changes.

 * Including in binary packages test suite code that upstream does not
   install.
  * There are multiple issues: including things as %doc and actually
    packaging test binaries in /usr/bin.
  * There is little committee consensus on this; some members don't
    care what gets packaged as %doc, some don't want any test suite
    code packaged at all.
  * Community opinions are solicited here.
  * If someone feels strongly enough about the issue, please write up
    a draft.

 - J<