[Fedora-packaging] Docs outside %docdir

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 11/28/2010 08:39 PM, Andrea Musuruane wrote:
> Hi all,
>      I was performing a package review for RPM Fusion:
> http://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1153
>
> RPM Fusion follows the Fedora Packaging Guidelines so I think I can
> ask here a question it came to me during the review.
>
> This package has some exec files correctly installed by the packager
> in %libexecdir/packagename/bin instead of %libdir/packagename/bin
> because they are called by the main program who sits in %bindir.
>
> The files in %libexecdir use some files in
> %libexecdir/packagename/doc to show help, options, examples, etc when
> called with some parameters.
>
> Is it acceptable to leave these files here?
No, this is not acceptable.

Think of libexecdir as an auxilliary bindir, which is supposed to take 
applications, users are not supposed to invoke directly.

> Or they should be moved
> somewhere else?
Yes.

> They cannot be installed in %docdir because they affect the runtime of
> the application:
You'd have to provide more details about how these "docs affect the 
runtime" to be able to help.

In case applications (Independently of where they are installed) access 
them directly (e.g. because these docs are part of an 
application-specific, application-integrated documentation system), 
/usr/share/<package> or a subdir of it may be a suitable candidate.

Ralf