[Fedora-packaging] installation of info files

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Wed, 2006-07-12 at 22:28 +0200, Till Maas wrote:
> Hiyas,
> 
> the guidelines do not mention how to install .info files the right way. At the 
> moment there seem to be several scriptlets used to install them in %post 
> and %preun. I want to suggest to define a rpm-macro that handles info files 
> in the right way which also would reduce redundant lines of code in 
> spec-files. Something like "%info" in the files section would be most useful 
> in my oppionion, like it already exists for documentation (%doc).
> 
> What are your oppionions about this?

Introducing such macros is a double sided sword:
* On one hand, they to some extend ease writing specs.

* On the other hand:
- Once such macros have been introduced, it's very difficult to get rid
of them, should one want to abandon such macros. In many cases, you will
have to continue to provide them for a very long (many years)
transitional time period. Rpm itself is full of semi-functional/once
thought to be useful macros, nowadays almost nobody uses.

- Vendor-specific macros are a major obstacle to spec file portability.
This isn't of much importance within a distribution, but is of
importance for 3rd parties who want to provide add-on/drop-in rpms.
SuSE and Mandrake users probably are aware about the (often
unresolvable) problems such macros introduce, because these distros tend
use them extensively.

=> IMO, in general such macros should be avoided as far as possible.
In an ideal world all macros should either be provided by vendor
independent packages, or as part of by rpm itself.

Ralf