[Fedora-packaging] %doc killing files installed below %_defaultdocdir

[Michael Schwendt]

The scenario:

  - tarball "make install" installs lots of documentation files in
    %_defaultdocdir/%name-%version/

  - package %files list uses %doc attributes to place its own
    selection of files in our default docdir

  => all doc files from "make install" are lost, because
     %doc fills %_defaultdocdir/%name-%version/ from scratch


In all earlier cases where applicable, I could convince the packager
to not use %doc and instead create proper %files entries to include
the files found in %_defaultdocdir/%name-%version/ -- as a bonus,
rpmbuild would fail for any file not included in %files.

For the first time, a packager insists on overwriting/killing the
installed files with his own conflicting %doc attributes.


Conclusion: It works but bears risks. It would silently kill any
additional documentation files built and installed by an upgrade, but not
added by the packager manually via %doc. It could also be that the %doc
statements create different subdirs (e.g. ./html/ versus placing the
html files directory in the pkg's docdir root) which might conflict
with paths compiled into an application.

What do other people think about this?

-- 
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/484933