Fedora Board Meeting Recap 2009-02-03

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 2009-02-05 at 22:59:41 -0500, inode0 <inode0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> The packaging guidelines are not clear to me about whether cowsay is
> or isn't code. They also aren't clear to me about whether OVM is or
> isn't code. Judging from the FESCO minutes I would hazard a guess that
> it wasn't entirely clear to them as a body either. Is it clear to
> board members whether cowsay and/or OVM are code or content?

Well, lets start with this:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#Code_Vs_Content

Ultimately, there are two arbiters as to whether something is Code or
Content, FESCo and Fedora Legal.

The unspoken rules that I use (which I should probably write down are):

A) Does this thing need to be executed to be functional? If yes, it is
code. If not, goto B. (Catches non-compiled code)
B) Does this thing need to be compiled to be functional? If yes, it is
code. If not, goto B. (Catches anything which is only useful when
compiled, datasets in functions, etc)
C) Is it useful in a standalone state? If yes, it is probably content.
Look further and make recommendation to FESCo if it is at all unclear.
If no, it may still be content, but we may not want it in Fedora.

As to cowsay, it falls out of that logic path at A, it is clearly an
executable script, thus, code.

~spot