RPM guidelines for vendors (was: Packaging idea)

[Davide Bolcioni]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:

>>Yes, I cannot deny that the last 2 weeks spent packaging nonfree
>>software has greatly influenced this post. :) That, plus the sad fact
>>that even though several vendors provide .rpm files, they are utterly
>>unusable because they try to be installable on as many things as
>>possible, and always end up sucking on all.
> 
> 
> so basically the fap layer is only really a target for nonfree
> software... but clearly
> its doomed to fail because the pre-existing conditions for it to be
> used successfully are not going to be met
> 
> if proprietary vendors can't package rpms correctly.. the fap layer
> doesn't help.
> if proprietary vendors can't create repos correctly.. the fap layer
> doesn't help.
> 
> I have very little faith in proprietary vendors doing either correctly.

Are there guidelines for proprietary vendors to follow beyond the
fedora.us Wiki and Mandrake's Howto (neither of which addresses yum
repositories, unless my memory fails me) ?

Maybe it's just a problem of the relevant information being too
fragmented over too many mailing lists - in my own little corner of the
universe, this is equivalent to "there is no documentation" for the
proprietary software developer.

Furthermore, but maybe it's just me, I've found that proprietary
developers working under silly time constraints tend to skip "good
practices" in the rush to finish *but* pay attention to avoiding
known "bad practices", so maybe guidelines geared for vendor
packaging should be in the form of "horror stories" - if you
have suppressed the urge to rant about a glaring packaging blunder till
now, I just gave you a justification :-)

Thank you for your consideration,
Davide Bolcioni