From 468f46462f251032443fac188f66feba85b9aa79 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Miro Hrončok <miro@hroncok.cz>
Date: Dec 28 2021 21:21:41 +0000
Subject: Weak dependencies on subpackages MUST NOT be fully versioned


This is driven by:

 - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/ExcludeFromWeakAutodetect
 - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1699672#c44

---

diff --git a/guidelines/modules/ROOT/pages/WeakDependencies.adoc b/guidelines/modules/ROOT/pages/WeakDependencies.adoc
index 6c88b5d..adcfbd0 100644
--- a/guidelines/modules/ROOT/pages/WeakDependencies.adoc
+++ b/guidelines/modules/ROOT/pages/WeakDependencies.adoc
@@ -32,6 +32,24 @@ dependencies or remove them later. To skip installing weak dependencies, pass
 
 As with regular dependencies, weak dependencies MUST be satisfiable within the official Fedora repositories.
 
+Unlike regular dependencies,
+weak dependencies on subpackages MUST NOT be fully versioned;
+reasonable version bounds or dependencies without versions MUST be used instead.
+
+Avoiding fully versioned weak dependencies makes it possible for the package installer to recognize new weak dependencies from the already existing ones.
+Including the always-changing version-release in the dependency would result in treating it as a new weak dependency on every package update.
+Examples of correct (and incorrect) weak dependencies:
+
+....
+# DO something like this:
+Recommends:   extra-functionality-lib > 3.2
+Recommends:   %{name}-a-subpackage
+
+# DON'T DO either of this:
+Recommends:   %{name}-a-subpackage = %{version}-%{release}
+Recommends:   %{name}-a-subpackage >= %{version}-%{release}
+....
+
 Weak dependencies may only be used in a package if the package still functions
 without the dependency present. It is acceptable, however, to create packages
 that have very limited functionality without adding any of its weak