Package Review Guidelines

FPC grants an explicit exemption from the process, as indicated here.

The package is being created so that multiple versions of the same package can coexist in the distribution (or coexist between EPEL and RHEL). The package MUST be properly named according to the naming guidelines and MUST NOT conflict with all other versions of the same package.

The package exists in both Fedora and RHEL, but the packager wants to ship it in EPEL under an alternative name (as required by EPEL policy) to provide a subpackage that exists in Fedora but does not exist (or is not shipped) in RHEL.

MUST: rpmlint must be run on the source rpm and all binary rpms the build produces. The output should be posted in the review. See Packaging Guidelines: Use rpmlint

MUST: The package must be named according to the Package Naming Guidelines .

MUST: The spec file name must match the base package %{name}, in the format %{name}.spec unless your package has an exemption. See Packaging Guidelines: Spec File Naming .

MUST: The package must meet the Packaging Guidelines .

MUST: The package must be licensed with a Fedora approved license and meet the Licensing Guidelines .

MUST: The License field in the package spec file must match the actual license. See Licensing Guidelines: Valid License Short Names

MUST: If (and only if) the source package includes the text of the license(s) in its own file, then that file, containing the text of the license(s) for the package must be included in %license. See Licensing Guidelines: License Text

MUST: The spec file must be written in American English. See Packaging Guidelines: Summary and description

MUST: The spec file for the package MUST be legible. See Packaging Guidelines: Spec Legibility

MUST: The sources used to build the package must match the upstream source, as provided in the spec URL. Reviewers should use sha256sum for this task as it is used by the sources file once imported into git. If no upstream URL can be specified for this package, please see the Source URL Guidelines for how to deal with this.

MUST: The package MUST successfully compile and build into binary rpms on at least one primary architecture. See Packaging Guidelines: Architecture Support

MUST: If the package does not successfully compile, build or work on an architecture, then those architectures should be listed in the spec in ExcludeArch. Each architecture listed in ExcludeArch MUST have a bug filed in bugzilla, describing the reason that the package does not compile/build/work on that architecture. The bug number MUST be placed in a comment, next to the corresponding ExcludeArch line. See Packaging Guidelines: Architecture Build Failures

MUST: All build dependencies must be listed in BuildRequires. See Packaging Guidelines: Build-Time Dependencies (BuildRequires)

MUST: The spec file MUST handle locales properly. This is done by using the %find_lang macro. Using %{_datadir}/locale/* is strictly forbidden. See Packaging Guidelines: Handling Locale Files

MUST: Packages must NOT bundle copies of system libraries. See Packaging Guidelines: Bundling and Duplication of System Libraries

MUST: If the package is designed to be relocatable, the packager must state this fact in the request for review, along with the rationalization for relocation of that specific package. Without this, use of Prefix: /usr is considered a blocker. See Packaging Guidelines: Relocatable Packages

MUST: A package must own all directories that it creates. If it does not create a directory that it uses, then it should require a package which does create that directory. See Packaging Guidelines: File And Directory Ownership

MUST: A Fedora package must not list a file more than once in the spec file’s %files listings. (Notable exception: license texts in specific situations)See Packaging Guidelines: Duplicate Files

MUST: Permissions on files must be set properly. Executables should be set with executable permissions, for example. See Packaging Guidelines: File Permissions

MUST: Each package must consistently use macros. See Packaging Guidelines: Macros

MUST: The package must contain code, or permissible content. See What Can Be Packaged

MUST: Large documentation files must go in a -doc subpackage. (The definition of large is left up to the packager’s best judgement, but is not restricted to size. Large can refer to either size or quantity). See Packaging Guidelines: Documentation

MUST: If a package includes something as %doc, it must not affect the runtime of the application. To summarize: If it is in %doc, the program must run properly if it is not present. See Packaging Guidelines: Documentation

MUST: Static libraries must be in a -static package. See Packaging Guidelines: Packaging Static Libraries

MUST: Development files must be in a -devel package. See Packaging Guidelines: Devel Packages

MUST: In the vast majority of cases, devel packages must require the base package using a fully versioned dependency: Requires: %{name}%{?_isa} = %{version}-%{release} See Packaging Guidelines: Requiring Base Package

MUST: Packages must NOT contain any .la libtool archives, these must be removed in the spec if they are built. See Packaging Guidelines: Packaging Static Libraries

MUST: Packages containing GUI applications must include a %{name}.desktop file, and that file must be properly installed with desktop-file-install in the %install section. If you feel that your packaged GUI application does not need a .desktop file, you must put a comment in the spec file with your explanation. See Packaging Guidelines: Desktop files

MUST: Packages must not own files or directories already owned by other packages. The rule of thumb here is that the first package to be installed should own the files or directories that other packages may rely upon. This means, for example, that no package in Fedora should ever share ownership with any of the files or directories owned by the filesystem or man package. If you feel that you have a good reason to own a file or directory that another package owns, then please present that at package review time. See Packaging Guidelines: File and Directory Ownership

MUST: All filenames in rpm packages must be valid UTF-8. See Packaging Guidelines: Non-ASCII Filenames

MUST: Packages being added to the distribution MUST NOT depend on any packages which have been marked as being deprecated. See Deprecating Packages

SHOULD: If the source package does not include license text(s) as a separate file from upstream, the packager SHOULD query upstream to include it. See Licensing Guidelines: License Text

SHOULD: The reviewer should test that the package builds in mock. See Using Mock to test package builds

SHOULD: The package should compile and build into binary rpms on all supported architectures. See Packaging Guidelines: Architecture Support

SHOULD: The reviewer should test that the package functions as described. A package should not segfault instead of running, for example.

SHOULD: If scriptlets are used, those scriptlets must be sane. This is vague, and left up to the reviewers judgement to determine sanity. See Packaging Guidelines: Scriptlets

SHOULD: Usually, subpackages other than devel should require the base package using a fully versioned dependency. See Packaging Guidelines: Requiring Base Package

SHOULD: The placement of pkgconfig(.pc) files depends on their usecase, and this is usually for development purposes, so should be placed in a -devel pkg. A reasonable exception is that the main pkg itself is a devel tool not installed in a user runtime, e.g. gcc or gdb. See Packaging Guidelines: Pkgconfig Files

SHOULD: If the package has file dependencies outside of /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, or /usr/sbin consider requiring the package which provides the file instead of the file itself. See Packaging Guidelines: File and Directory Dependencies

SHOULD: your package should contain man pages for binaries/scripts. If it doesn’t, work with upstream to add them where they make sense. See Packaging Guidelines: Manpages