I've run into -doc noarch packages that cannot be installed without pulling in a long chain of dependencies. I've thought it is widely accepted practice since Fedora Extras that documentation packages may be installed independently, i.e. without having to install an application and all its deps. Especially if the documentation can be displayed with any browser or viewer. It is convenient if one can install/remove Documentation packages without any dependencies. It could be that packagers apply the "Requiring Base Package" guidelines to -doc subpackages, because the "Documentation" guidelines don't recommend otherwise: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Requiring_Base_Package https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Documentation Can we please agree on keeping -doc packages free of dependencies unless the documentation is in a custom format specific to an application? (such as preprocessed+compressed instead of plain HTML, PDF, TXT) [...] What about "-javadoc" packages? Generated HTML documentation in noarch packages that may be displayed with any HTML viewer. Here it seems packagers add a dependency on "jpackage-utils" only to pull in dependencies that own the /usr/share/javadoc directory. It's not jpackage-utils but javapackages-tools that owns it. # repoquery --whatprovides /usr/share/javadoc javapackages-tools-0:3.4.1-1.fc20.noarch javapackages-tools-0:3.4.1-1.fc20.noarch # repoquery --whatrequires javapackages-tools|wc -l 2559 # repoquery --whatrequires jpackage-utils|wc -l 2557 As a result, one cannot install -javadoc packages without having to install dependencies. Why is it like that? Just to apply the "BuildRequires and Requires" guidelines for Java packages also to -javadoc packages? https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Java#Javadoc_installation Could we relax the Java packaging guidelines for -javadoc packages, please?