[Fedora-packaging] Duplication of documentation in subpackages

Patrice Dumas pertusus at free.fr
Fri Feb 15 09:18:46 UTC 2008


On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 12:07:48AM -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> I've seen a few packages which include things like a readme or license
> file in both the main package and one or more subpackages.
> 
> The review guidelines are explicit that packages must not contain
> duplicate files in the %files listing, and generally these will abort
> a build, but in the case of %doc files this doesn't seem to be the
> case.

That's because they are not installed at the smae location since the
package name is used when constructing the doc directory.

> I know spot has indicated in the past that there's no legal
> requirement to duplicate the license file between subpackages, even
> when they have names which don't relate them in any way to the main
> package.  What I've never been sure of is whether it's something I
> need to block packages for.  I guess if anyone is that concerned about
> saving space they can just do --nodocs installs.

I personnally think that it can be left to the packager, but it also 
seems to me that we should discourage it in packages that depend on other
packages that have the same doc files.

But, in my opinion, in packages that don't depend on each other,
duplicating at least the license makes sense (though should not be
mandatory).

--
Pat




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