[Guidelines Change] Changes to the Packaging Guidelines 04/09 - 02/10

It has been almost a year since we announced changes to the Packaging Guidelines, so this will be a long list. In the future, we'll try to be more timely in writing up changes and announcing them to the Fedora Community. Here are the list of changes to the Fedora Packaging Guidelines: When selecting which source to download from upstream and use in a Fedora package, the smallest available (and Fedora compatible) source should be used: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/SourceURL#Referencing_Source The Fortran Packaging Guidelines have been updated: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Fortran The Ant Sample Spec in the Java Packaging Guidelines has been corrected: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Java The R Packaging Guidelines have been updated: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:R The Scrollkeeper scriptlets were removed from the Packaging Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:ScriptletSnippets#Scrollkeeper The Python Packaging Guidelines were significantly rewritten including changes to address: * Python 3 * PyGTK2 and Numpy https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Python Dos2unix is no longer forbidden when removing DOS line breaks in a file: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#Rpmlint_Errors The Packaging Guidelines now contain a lengthy explanation of why Bundled Libraries are not permitted in Fedora: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:No_Bundled_Libraries The Packaging Guideline section on dealing with pre-built libraries has been improved: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#No_inclusion_of_pre-b... Fedora packages no longer need to explicitly define a BuildRoot, as RPM now always defines one: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#BuildRoot_tag The Fedora Packaging Guidelines now contain more information on how to deal with Conflicting Files in scenarios involving "common names": https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Conflicts#Conflicting_Files There are now Packaging Guidelines for Wordpress Plugins: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:WordPress_plugin_packaging_guide... There are now Packaging Guidelines for Globus Toolkit components: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Globus Since RPM now detects pkgconfig dependencies in all Fedora releases, it is no longer necessary for Fedora packages with .pc files to explicitly Require: pkgconfig : https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingGuidelines#Pkgconfig_Files Fedora packages should contain man pages for all included binaries and scripts, and if not present, Fedora packagers should work with upstream to add them: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Man_pages There are now Packaging Guidelines for MPI packages: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:MPI There are now Packaging Guidelines for proper usage of Environment Modules: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:EnvironmentModules There are now Packaging Guidelines for proper usage of Alternatives: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Alternatives The Packaging Guidelines now have a section covering how to properly handle filtering of Automatic Provides and Requires: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:AutoProvidesAndRequiresFiltering The GConf scriptlets have been rewritten to use macros (and be much simpler): https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:ScriptletSnippets#GConf The Guidelines concerning RPath have been clarified: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Beware_of_Rpath The Guidelines concerning File and Directory ownership have been clarified: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#File_and_Directory_Ow... The Emacs Packaging Guidelines have been changed: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Emacs The PHP Packaging Guidelines have been changed: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:PHP The Fedora Packaging Guidelines now contain a section on dealing with Buildtime Macros in Source RPMS: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Source_RPM_Buildtime_... A clarification note has been added to the SourceURL section, reminding Fedora packagers to use "downloads.sourceforge.net": https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:SourceURL#Sourceforge.net These guidelines (and changes) were approved by the Fedora Packaging Committee (FPC) and ratified by FESCo. Many thanks to Pierre-Yves Chibon, Remi Collet, Mattias Ellert, Adam Jackson, Jussi Lehtola, David Malcolm, Till Maas, Bill Nottingham, Orcan Ogetbil, Rahul Sundaram, Alexey Torkhov, Jonathan Underwood, Ivana Varekova, Ian Weller, Chris Weyl and all of the members of the FPC and FESCo, for assisting in drafting, refining, and passing these guidelines. As a reminder: The Fedora Packaging Guidelines are living documents! If you find something missing, incorrect, or in need of revision, you can suggest a draft change. The procedure for this is documented here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Committee#GuidelineChangeProcedure Thanks, ~spot