https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1003962
--- Comment #5 from Jared Smith jsmith.fedora@gmail.com --- (In reply to daniel.neuberger from comment #4)
Thanks for adding the patch.
You're most welcome.
Why was the decision made to create a new guide rather than just renaming or updating the old guide?
In short, for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that the exiting guide is a bit overwhelming to new packagers, and we really wanted to have a guide focused on helping novice packagers get up to speed.
The second reason is the simple fact that updating the existing guide would be an enormous undertaking, and nobody has volunteered to step up and do the work. There's nothing that says we can't have two guides, we just need help to do the work.
Also, wouldn't it make more sense to start by documenting the spec file syntax/"language" as part of the rpm-build rpm? It seems like the problem is that there's a tool, rpmbuild, that processes a syntax, spec files, that isn't documented or standardized.
It makes sense to me, but I'm just a volunteer, and I don't have either the time or inclination to dive into documenting every detail at that level. Until someone volunteers to do the work or gets asked to do it as part of their day job, it's just wishes and dreams.
One of the unfortunate truths is that writing documentation isn't sexy, and in open source communities, it often doesn't get the attention that developing new code does. As with everything else in open source, we either have to scratch the itch ourselves, pay someone to scratch it for us, or find a way to convince someone else that it's their itch.