In the R packaging guidelines [1] we recommand that libraries mark their DESCRIPTION file as %doc in the %file section.
It was reported to me that since R 3.x this breaks loading libraries on system that defaults to excluding documentation, system such as docker.
So I would like to suggest we move the DESCRIPTION files from %doc into the regular %files in the examples we provide as well as in R2spec.
FTR here is the email I received: {{{ Thank you again for R2rpm, I have been using R2rpm generated packages for many months now.
I have discovered a bug. I started installing R2rpm generated packages with the Docker centos:7 image and discovered that R would not load my R libraries. The core problem appears to be that R requires the DESCRIPTION file to be present in order to load it. It is not merely a documentation file, it is required to load an R library (R version 3). It appears that a**excludedocs is turned on by default with the Docker centos:7 image since it is a very minimal image.
<patch for R2spec cut out for this discussion> }}}
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:R
As the R maintainer, this change makes sense. #easyfix
We discussed this at this weeks meeting (http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-1/2015-05-21/fpc.2015-05-21-16.08.txt):
Announcement text:
The R Packaging guidelines have been revised to indicate that the DESCRIPTION file should not be marked %doc, as it is actually required for operation of the R package and needs to be present even when installed with --excludedocs.
Diff link should be:
Metadata Update from @james: - Issue assigned to tibbs
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