[Fedora-packaging] Documentation packages and explicit Requires

[Christopher Meng]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 7:52 AM, Michael Schwendt <mschwendt at gmail.com> wrote:
> After many years, there still is the occasional packager, who adds
> an explicit "Requires: %{name} = %{version}-%{release}" to a noarch -doc
> subpackage which contains files one can display with any suitable program
> (such as PDF, HTML or TXT files).
>
> I don't know why they do it. The "Requiring Base Package" guidelines
> leave enough freedom to not do it and even mention -libs subpackages as one
> example where the base dep is not "needed":
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Requiring_Base_Package
>
> What do other packagers think about this?
>
> Can we please get rid of such bloat in plain Documentation packages?
> These dependencies pull in lots of stuff even if one only wants to peruse
> the documentation (e.g. when taking a brief look at an API or what an
> application can do).

Agree +1

As I've seen how people fiddle with that, doc packaging has been a
mess. Someone name -doc package to -docs, and someone build them as
arch-dependant packages.

-doc subpkg shouldn't require main pkg, just as Mat said above, it's
really irritating to view docs while pulling in lots of dependencies.
Some doc package are really large, and base pkg it pulls is even
larger.