Subject: Re: bug#54234: Dropping versioned docdir for license files?

From: Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2022 10:44:24 -0500

Hi Maxime,

Maxime Devos <[email-masked]> writes:

> Maxim Cournoyer schreef op do 03-03-2022 om 08:37 [-0500]:
>> It seems to me it'd be nicer to have both agree on the same docdir.  We
>> could drop the version and use gnu-build-system's docdir, or alter the
>> default gnu-build-system docdir to use a versioned output.  The later
>> some more troublesome, as we'd have to do the same adjustment for each
>> build system, and I'm not convinced of the value added.  So I'd suggest
>> we simply normalize to use the standard docdir.
>> 
>> What do you think?
>
> This does not really answer your question, but if we do this, we could
> combine this with another change:
>
> Some software does not work with a COPYING or LICENSE file, or they do
> but also have other relevant licenses.  E.g., gnunet-scheme follows
> REUSE and puts the license texts in a LICENSES directory and some extra
> information in '.reuse/dep5'.  It would be nice if those were copied
> as well.

What is REUSE?

> Also, to partially answer your question: probably not all
> gnu-build-system packages actually implement the 'docdir' option
> and might even error out if it is passed.  Fixing these build failures
> might be tedious.

Even the packages using their own configure script probably would
install their doc under /share/doc/$name/ as this is the standard on FHS
distribution.  I'm not suggesting to tweak docdir, I'm suggesting to use
the default, non-versioned value.

Thanks,

Maxim