[Fedora-packaging] review guidelines vs packaging guidelines

Matthias Clasen mclasen at redhat.com
Fri Aug 17 17:16:57 UTC 2007


The review guidelines have this:

- MUST: A package must own all directories that it creates. If it does
not create a directory that it uses, then it should require a package
which does create that directory. The exception to this are directories
listed explicitly in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
(http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html), as it is safe to assume
that those directories exist.


The packaging guidelines say:

The rule of thumb is that your package should own all of the directories
it creates except those owned by packages which your package depends on.
However, there are exceptions to this. If the directory hierarchy your
package is located in may change due to updates of packages you depend
on, then you need to take care to own those pieces of the hierarchy. 

[...]

Another exception for directory ownership in packages is when there is
no clear dependency hierarchy.


I think the shortened version in the review guidelines is misleading and
causes us to err on the side of adding unwanted dependencies just for
directory ownership reasons. Can we have it changed to mention the
furhter exceptions that are discussed in the packaging guidelines ?






More information about the Fedora-packaging mailing list