What exactly is a "bundled library"? (was Re: apitrace, bundled libbacktrace)

[Pavel Alexeev]

13.06.2014 01:42, Adam Williamson пишет:
> On Tue, 2014-05-13 at 18:56 +0200, Sandro Mani wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> apitrace 5.0 bundles libbacktrace, which looks like is living within the 
>> gcc sources. libbacktrace is not build as a shared library from the gcc 
>> sources, and not packaged.
>>
>> Is it feasible to build libbacktrace as a shared library and ship it in 
>> a corresponding package? Or should I rather go for a bundling exception 
>> request?
> So in writing a reply to this, I noticed the guidelines around this are
> actually fairly unclear and subject to interpretation.
>
> The section on this topic from
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines reads:
>
> "Duplication of system libraries
>
> A package should not include or build against a local copy of a library
> that exists on a system. The package should be patched to use the system
> libraries. This prevents old bugs and security holes from living on
> after the core system libraries have been fixed.
>
> In this RPM packaging context, the definition of the term 'library'
> includes: compiled third party source code resulting in shared or static
> linkable files, interpreted third party source code such as Python, PHP
> and others. At this time JavaScript intended to be served to a web
> browser on another computer is specifically exempted from this but this
> will likely change in the future.
>
> Note that for C and C++ there's only one "system" in Fedora but for some
> other languages we have parallel stacks. For instance, python, python3,
> jython, and pypy are all implementations of the python language but they
> are separate interpreters with slightly different implementations of the
> language. Each stack is considered its own "system" and can each contain
> its own copy of a library."
>
> The thing that is particularly unclear there is the definition of "a
> system" (as in "a library that exists on a system"). The following
> paragraphs seem to imply that Fedora's stacks for languages/frameworks
> that implement some kind of shared library functionality are to be
> understood as "systems" in that context. This is still not made
> *entirely* clear, though, really.
>
> The page https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:No_Bundled_Libraries
> has all sorts of rationale and process stuff, but still no clear
> definition of precisely what it is that constitutes a "bundled library".
>
> Even more confusingly,
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Treatment_Of_Bundled_Libraries
> seems to have a rather different definition from that given on
> Packaging:Guidelines. It reads:
>
> "(bundled libraries being defined as libraries which exist and are
> mantained independently, whether or not they are packaged separately for
> Fedora)"
>
> to me, that seems fundamentally different from the definition that is
> somewhat unclearly implied on the Packaging:Guidelines page.
>
> Has this been considered before? Is there a superior definition
> somewhere, or an accepted interpretation which is consistent with both
> pages?
>
> Do we in fact need a section in Packaging:Guidelines and then two
> separate 'subsidiary' pages all on the topic of bundled libraries? Would
> it make more sense to combine all the details onto a single subsidiary
> page and have Packaging:Guidelines just have a very short sort of
> 'summary' and a link to that one subsidiary page? Would that reduce the
> likelihood of confusion?
>
> Thanks!
>
> I've seen several cases in the Real World where 'bundled' libraries that
> are not a part of the Fedora repositories were considered to be OK under
> the policy, which is a possible interpretation of the policy as given on
> Packaging:Guidelines, but doesn't really seem to be a possible
> interpretation of the policy as given on
> Packaging:Treatment_Of_Bundled_Libraries (as it explicitly states
> "whether or not they are packaged separately for Fedora"). This could
> have considerable implementations for webapps if it were interpreted
> strictly, I think.
Sorry for the old thread.
But it is very interesting question to clearly determine "bundled
library" to which returning happened again and again.
Does it hang again now or something indeed changed?
-- 
With best wishes, Pavel Alexeev (aka Pahan-Hubbitus). For fast contact
with me use jabber: Hubbitus at jabber.ru