[Fedora-packaging] Re: New draft packaging guidelines for OCaml

Ralf Corsepius rc040203 at freenet.de
Wed Mar 5 06:21:50 UTC 2008


On Wed, 2008-03-05 at 11:34 +0530, Parag N(पराग़) wrote:
> Hi all,
> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 1:40 AM, Hans de Goede <j.w.r.degoede at hhs.nl> wrote:
> > Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> >  > On Mon, Mar 03, 2008 at 11:57:40AM -0500, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
> >  >> On Mon, 2008-03-03 at 16:53 +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> >  >>
> >  >>>  - Clarify where documentation should go.  Currently my practice has
> >  >>>    been to put just the license file (if any) in the main package's %doc,
> >  >>>    and the license file plus all other documentation & examples in
> >  >>>    the devel subpackage.  This duplicates (only) the license file, but
> >  >>>    that seems acceptable since we shouldn't distribute software without
> >  >>>    its license.
> >  >> -devel packages should Require the main package, thus, there really
> >  >> isn't any need for the duplicate license copy.
> >  >
> >  > But you could still just install the main package and not devel, and
> >  > then you are in the situation where Fedora has distributed a binary
> >  > and basically removed the licensing information.  It doesn't feel like
> >  > the right thing to do to me (but IANAL).
> >  >
> >
> >  No Spot means it the other way around, keep the license in the main package and
> >  drop it from the -devel one as that requires the main package anyways.
> >
>     I prefer to see this documented in guidelines instead to discuss
> this on fedora-packaging or say on fedora-devel list. I assume same
> will be applied for other %doc files AUTHORS  ChangeLog README that is
> not to include them if they are same files already included in main
> package right?

Well things aren't that simple. License/copyright files are special.
They are legal documents. Most other %doc files are informational
documents [1].


Whether to include AUTHORS, ChangeLog in a main (== run-time in most
cases) package is very arguable. In most cases, including them in a
main-package hardly makes any sense (They typically contain information
which is non-interesting to ordinary users).

READMEs are yet another class of file. They may contain all kind of
information. You will want to look into them to judge "if" and "where"
to add them.

Also, consider that breaking %doc into pieces technically isn't always
easy or feasible.

So, I am in favor to leave such decisions to a packager's discretion.

Ralf

[1] Interesting corner case: Is it legal to %doc (and therefore to allow
not installing them due to --exclude-docs) legal documents? 
... Just wondering ;)






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