[Fedora-packaging] RFC: howto to package LaTeX classes

[Jose Pedro Oliveira]

Hi,

Are there any recommendations regarding TeTeX packages?

In particular I have a few doubts/questions regarding:

   * license

     Question:
     Is the "LaTeX Project Public License" an approved license?

     Note:
     The rpmlint emits the following warning regarding the license
	...
     W: tetex-xcolor invalid-license LaTeX Project Public License

   * name conventions for tetex related macros

      - texmf base directory
      - package base directory
      - package documentation base directory (texdoc related)
      - texhash program (or mktexlsr)

      Example:
      %define _texmf      %{_datadir}/texmf
      %define __texhash   %{_bindir}/texhash

      %define texpkg      xcolor
      %define texpkgdir   %{_texmf}/tex/latex/%{texpkg}
      %define texpkgdoc   %{_texmf}/doc/latex/%{texpkg}


   * installation scripts (texhash vs mktexlsr)

     Problem:
     the texhash file is owned by different packages

	$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/texhash

         FC1: tetex-2.0.2-8
         FC3: tetex-fonts-2.0.2-21.3

     Solution:
     Use the file as a requirement

     ----------
     ...
     Requires(post): %{__texhash}
     Requires(postun): %{__texhash}
     ...
     %post
     %{__texhash} %{_texmf} >/dev/null 2>&1 || :

     %postun
     %{__texhash} %{_texmf} >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
     ...
     ----------


   * installation of package documentation in order for
     it to be found by the texdoc program

     Problem:
     - the texdoc program only searches for documentation
       files under the directory

           /usr/share/texmf/doc/

     - I believe the tetex package documentation should be
       installed in directories like

           /usr/share/texmf/doc/latex/"package_name"

       but /usr/share/texmf/doc is owned by tetex-doc which
       is a rather big package (50MB+) to be a requirement.
       Is it ok for tetex-* packages owning this directory?


I am packaging the latex Beamer presentation class and its two
dependencies (xcolor and pgf).  I have looked at several tetex-*
packages (fedora us/extras) and almost everyone of them seems
to be doing different thing. It would be nice to have a specfile
template.

Comments/suggestions are welcome,
jpo

References:
* The Beamer presentation class
   http://latex-beamer.sourceforge.net/

* The Xcolor dependency
   http://www.ukern.de/tex/xcolor.html

* Two of my tetex specfiles
   http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software/RPMS/tetex-xcolor.spec
   http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software/RPMS/tetex-xcolor-2.00-1.src.rpm
   http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software/RPMS/tetex-pgf.spec
   http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software/RPMS/tetex-pgf-0.65-1.src.rpm

PS - I forgot to mention that I am not a TeX/LaTeX expert.

--
José Pedro Oliveira
* mailto: jpo(a)di.uminho.pt * http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/~jpo *
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