How can the following two contradicting sections coexist?
In most cases, it should not be necessary for multiple packages to contain identical copies of the same file. However, if it is necessary, multiple packages may contain identical copies of the same file, as long as the following requirements are met: The packages sharing ownership of the identical files are built from a single SRPM. OR The packages sharing ownership of the identical files are not in a dependency chain (e.g. if package A requires package B, they should not both contain identical files, either A or B must own the common files, but not both.)
In most cases, it should not be necessary for multiple packages to contain identical copies of the same file. However, if it is necessary, multiple packages may contain identical copies of the same file, as long as the following requirements are met:
The packages sharing ownership of the identical files are built from a single SRPM.
OR
The packages sharing ownership of the identical files are not in a dependency chain (e.g. if package A requires package B, they should not both contain identical files, either A or B must own the common files, but not both.)
vs.
A Fedora package must not list a file more than once in the spec file’s %files listings. If you think your package is a valid exception to this, please bring it to the attention of the Packaging Committee so they can improve on this Guideline.
This was found by @rombobeorn.
I think the second one just dates from the earliest days of the guidelines and is outdated.
Anyone see any good reason not to just remove the second bit?
Metadata Update from @tibbs: - Issue tagged with: meeting
Some time ago, i submitted pull request #1061 which is somehow related because it contains other changes to File and Directory Ownership.
I'm pretty sure the first is talking about two files with the same contents and the second is talking about the exact same file being listed twice. Maybe the wording could be better? Probably also fine to just remove the second version anyway.
The part of the original intent of the second bit was to prevent people from listing the license file in each subpackage, since that was something of an unwanted pattern. But I think the first rule also makes it at least semi-clear that isn't OK. In fact, I think the first rule just works to carve out exceptions from the second, and the "duplicate files" section should have been removed when the first was added. Somehow that didn't happen, but that was all a long time ago so I can't really be sure.
I'm pretty sure the first is talking about two files with the same contents and the second is talking about the exact same file being listed twice.
If "location on the filesystem" means the whole pathname, then the first rule talks about the exact same file being listed twice.
"Location on the filesystem" could possibly mean the directory part of the pathname, excluding the filename. In that case the first rule says that two copies in different directories is fine in all cases, but two copies with different filenames in the same directory is allowed only in some cases. That would be a rather odd rule.
I just did a close reading of the entire File and Directory Ownership section while applying semantic breaks to the whole document and found the section to be... not good.
It's really long, so I will pull it out to a separate document. Then the formatting is really not great, with some incredibly long section headings. There must be a better way to format those examples but I'm not sure what it is so I'll ask if the docs people have any ideas.
I might just end up rewriting it, but that will take a bit longer than figuring out what the intent of the existing document is when it comes to these conflicting sections.
Commit 1bd10a7 fixes this issue
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