#174 Please make the no-bundled-libraries exception requirements more clear
Closed: Fixed None Opened 11 years ago by tmraz.

The text of this section of the No_Bundled_Libraries guideline is not clear in case of the already granted wildcard exceptions for copylibs such as gnulib. The text here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:No_Bundled_Libraries#Requirement_if_you_bundle seems to require resolved FPC ticket to be linked from the .spec file which bundles such copylib. But that would effectively mean opening a FPC ticket for each such package or at least finding a ticket that was the original reason for the wildcard exception.

Also from the table of already granted exceptions it is not quite clear whether mentioning the version in the Provides: bundled(gnulib) is required or not because some of the exceptions in the table explicitly mention version and others do not.


Version information removed from the table so that people don't misinterpret it to mean that some Provides need versions and others do not.

You are required to link to the ticket in a comment. We could add links to the wildcard exceptions to make them easier for people to find the appropriate ticket link. However, IIRC gnulib wasn't granted an exception by the FPC so I suppose that strictly speaking it isn't allowed to be bundled according to the Guidelines. FPC should probably discuss this and consider adding the link to the FESCo ticket so that that's the official link or reapproving/disapproving the gnulib exception.

Also -- if anyone would like to dig through the tickets to find the links for those wildcards that exist, that would be a big help in getting this done.

Can we please reduce the amount of bureaucracy and formalism and not increase it? It should be clear that the exception for gnulib must be granted otherwise many critical core Fedora packages would have to be removed and half of the distribution along them. So no formal tickets should be needed and just mentioning that the wildcard exception for gnulib (and other similar copylibs) is granted in spec should be sufficient?

Seeing as my proposal doesn't increase the beauracracy -- it simply makes it easier for people to do what we've already agreed upon, I would vote against simply mentioning that there's a wildcard exception.

I simply fail to see how creating bogus tickets, approving them, and adding them to the wiki page, for wildcard exceptions that were already agreed upon improves the quality of Fedora. But if anybody volunteers to do that I certainly am not against it. Just that the work needed could have been spent on something more useful.

You misunderstand. Each wildcard exception should have a decision by the FPC to back it up. That single ticketed decision should be used in the spec files. It seemed that you were complaining that those would be hard to find so I proposed that we add links for the wildcard exceptions to the wiki page.

gnulib is "special" (IIRC) in that there doesn't currently exist an FPC ticket as the FPC didn't make the decision that gnulib was okay to have a wildcard exception. So there may be a certain amount of "bogusness" in us creating a ticket for it. OTOH, we could decide that gnulib doesn't justify having a wildcard exception (maybe it only deserves an exception in specific instances) and in that case, it would be good that the ticket was evaluated and decided upon.

All old FESCo wildcard exceptions are grandfathered in. (+1:8, 0:0, -1:0)

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