Where to install examples to?

[Ralf Corsepius]

Hi,

I am observing packages in FE installing examples/demos to /usr/bin.

Do people agree upon this to be good packaging practice or not?

IMO, it is not, because 
* This gradually fills up /usr/bin.
* Many such examples/demos are semi-functional or less and have never
been designed to be used by the public.

I'd recommend to install examples/demos to either
/usr/lib/<package>/
or even to 
/usr/share/doc/<package>

Opinions, comments?

Ralf

[Nicolas Mailhot]

On Ven 8 juillet 2005 09:38, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am observing packages in FE installing examples/demos to /usr/bin.
>
> Do people agree upon this to be good packaging practice or not?

IMHO examples and demos should be treated like normal code _BUT_ always
spinned of in a separate subpackage. This way you get proper packaging and
only people who really need them will have them on the filesystem.

I hate packages that dump examples and demos in a random place without any
real checks and have the main package swelled by this payload.

[Michael A. Peters]

On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 10:53 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> _BUT_ always
> spinned of in a separate subpackage.

would devel package suffice?

[Nicolas Mailhot]

On Ven 8 juillet 2005 15:59, Michael A. Peters wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 10:53 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> > _BUT_ always
> > spinned of in a separate subpackage.
>
> would devel package suffice?

Depends on the size.
Very often -devel packages are only used to build other stuff, so if
examples/demos dwarf the "need-for-building" part they don't belong in the
same subpackage IMHO.

[Enrico Scholz]

[e-mail] (Ralf Corsepius) writes:
> I am observing packages in FE installing examples/demos to /usr/bin.
> Do people agree upon this to be good packaging practice or not?
>
> IMO, it is not, because
> This gradually fills up /usr/bin.
> Many such examples/demos are semi-functional or less and have never
> been designed to be used by the public.

ACK; additionally:

* it may add additional dependencies; e.g. when haing a C project which
  ships a perl script as demo, the entire package will require perl.

Packaging the demo into /usr/lib or as %doc will not help much as
  rpm generates deps for all files (inclusive %doc) :( So a separate
  subpackage will be the best solution.

Enrico

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 10:58 +0200, Enrico Scholz wrote:
> [e-mail] (Ralf Corsepius) writes:
> > I am observing packages in FE installing examples/demos to /usr/bin.
> > Do people agree upon this to be good packaging practice or not?
> >
> > IMO, it is not, because
> > This gradually fills up /usr/bin.
> > Many such examples/demos are semi-functional or less and have never
> > been designed to be used by the public.
>
> ACK; additionally:
>
> it may add additional dependencies; e.g. when haing a C project which
> ships a perl script as demo, the entire package will require perl.
>
> Packaging the demo into /usr/lib or as %doc will not help much as
> rpm generates deps for all files (inclusive %doc) :( So a separate
> subpackage will be the best solution.

I realize I have not been precise enough. The trigger for this thread to
me had been example/demo binaries handling in
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-extras-commits/2005-July/msg00619.htm...

In this case, "example binaries" are being packaged into an *-examples
package and are installed to /usr/bin. The question here is, should
these binaries be installed at all, or should they better be installed
accompanying the source code somewhere else, or should the whole
examples not be installed at all (This seems to have been the intention
of the original authors, because the original Makefiles do not install
them).

If they are coding examples, IMO, it would be best to only ship the
sources (then /usr/share/doc probably would be appropriate), or to 
ship these binaries, accompanied by the source-code somewhere
under /usr/lib/<package>.

When having faced a similar problem with my Inventor package some time
ago at fedora.us, the outcome of a similar discussion was to ship
Inventor's examples source-code without binaries
below /usr/lib/<Inventor> (c.f. Inventor-examples).

A counter example to this consideration is gtk-demo. RH ships it as part
of the gtk2 package :(

Ralf

[Michael A. Peters]

On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 09:38 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am observing packages in FE installing examples/demos to /usr/bin.
>
> Do people agree upon this to be good packaging practice or not?
>
> IMO, it is not, because
> This gradually fills up /usr/bin.
> Many such examples/demos are semi-functional or less and have never
>
> been designed to be used by the public.
>
> I'd recommend to install examples/demos to either
> /usr/lib/<package>/
> or even to 
> /usr/share/doc/<package>
>
> Opinions, comments?

I'm in agreement - though some demos/examples actually are functional,
if they are only intended to be demos/examples they should (imho) be
in /usr/share/doc/

That's traditionally where I have found them (IE gst-python demos - some
of which are useful as stand alone)

[Michael Schwendt]

On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 09:38:17 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am observing packages in FE installing examples/demos to /usr/bin.
>
> Do people agree upon this to be good packaging practice or not?
>
> IMO, it is not, because
> This gradually fills up /usr/bin.
> Many such examples/demos are semi-functional or less and have never
>
> been designed to be used by the public.
>
> I'd recommend to install examples/demos to either
> /usr/lib/<package>/
> or even to 
> /usr/share/doc/<package>
>
> Opinions, comments?

Certainly _not_ /usr/share, as that one is for architecture-independent
data.

Reasonable:

* use a separate -demos package for them

* include them in -devel package as source, so developers can
   build them and examine them

* don't package them if they are not built by default and
   depending on what kind of demos/example they are

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 18:04 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 09:38:17 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am observing packages in FE installing examples/demos to /usr/bin.
> >
> > Do people agree upon this to be good packaging practice or not?
> >
> > IMO, it is not, because
> > This gradually fills up /usr/bin.
> > Many such examples/demos are semi-functional or less and have never
> >
> > been designed to be used by the public.
> >
> > I'd recommend to install examples/demos to either
> > /usr/lib/<package>/
> > or even to 
> > /usr/share/doc/<package>
> >
> > Opinions, comments?
>
> Certainly _not_ /usr/share, as that one is for architecture-independent
> data.

Right, this wouldn't be an appropriate place for binaries, but it would
be for "examples/demos" provided as source code.
> Reasonable:
>
> use a separate -demos package for them
>
> include them in -devel package as source, so developers can
> build them and examine them
>
> don't package them if they are not built by default and
> depending on what kind of demos/example they are

ACK.

Ralf