Marcus Rueckert wrote:
> On 2007-07-31 13:35:59 +0200, Petr Cerny wrote:
>> Johannes Meixner wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> On Jul 30 17:26 Juergen Weigert wrote (shortened):
>>>> The point in having /usr/share/doc/licenses is that this
>>>> establishes one single location where all licenses used in a
>>>> product are visible.
>>> Might this cause confusion for some users when they find out that
>>> they have many special licenses installed but not the software
>>> which belongs to those special licenses?
>> I agree. Moreover I have to say, I'm confused: who should profit
>> from the licenses.rpm packgage? If this is intended for users it's
>> IMHO superfluous: to find what license has some package, users will
>> either use 'rpm -qi' (or equivalent) or go to
>> /usr/share/doc/packages/<pkg>. If this is because of us as
>> distributors, I really don't see any significant advantages (if
>> size question is insignificant).
>>
>> In any case, licenses for not installed products are confusing and
>> I regard the obligation to install such package a bloat.
>
> it is less bloat than having the same file multiple times on the
> system. this package is not about "having all licenses" installed. it
> is about having a way to save space _and_ still have the license file
> available for symlinking.
Juergen Weigert wrote:
> No. The point in having /usr/share/doc/licenses is that this
> establishes one single location where all licenses used in a product
> are visible. So the content of the licenses.rpm should not only be
> comprehensive, but also exact.
>
> We can easily ignore any space saving effects.
Please consult previous posts: this "space saving" makes sense for small
distribution (USB, PDA). Then however you would probably bzip2 each
license file to really gain as much space as possible. On a fully-blown
desktop distro the space saving would be visible, yet less needed.
Moreover on a desktop with some 2000 packages you would save more space
by uninstalling the packages you really don't need yet the got there
because installer thought you might use them.
> i dont see an issue of having a documentation packaging around that
> carries all used licenses. as a comparison: should an RFC package
> only install the files, which contain infos about my installed
> services?
>
> i dont think so.
Wrong types in comparision. Installing rfc package is much more like
installing *-devel or *-debuginfo packages than licenses.
>>> I.e. what about "my installed licenses" versus "all licenses
>>> which are somewhere used by whatever software in the product"?
>>>
>>> (Yes, I know, the obvious technical solution is to check to which
>>> installed license a symlink points ;-)
>> Isn't it the same effort as scanning /usr/share/doc/packages for
>> license files (rather than for symlinks pointing to
>> /usr/share/doc/licenses)?
>
> this is all about saving space. so a symlink will definitely help us.
I would say it differently:
*If* this is all about saving space a symlink will *usually* help us.
AFAIK on some (if not most) filesystems symlink takes one block (1KB at
least) if the referenced filename takes more than 60B (e.g.
strlen("/usr/share/doc/license/license-<md5sum>")=64 *in 1byte
encoding*). MIT license is small (600B) so it occupies the same space as
the symlink - one block. With GPL symlink helps.
Best regards
Petr
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