[Mageia-dev] RFC Package Naming Policy

Mon Jan 30 19:24:44 CET 2012

Dear all,
+
+Following some recent mix-up, some possible ambiguity was found in the 
+current policy with respect to package naming (as seen in 
+https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Packaging_guidelines#Package_Naming).
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+So currently it is written:
+«* Name should be the upstream name of the software project, always 
+lowercase.
+* When the package name is different to the project name, you should 
+define and use %{upstream_name} macro to refer to the original project 
+name within the spec
+* ''Dash '-' must be used as the delimiter for name parts.''
+* ''Do NOT use an underscore '_', a plus '+', or a period '.' as a 
+delimiter.''
+* The spec file should be named using the %{name}.spec scheme, i.e. the 
+name of the package should be used as the name for the spec.»
+
+I propose to change it to the following:
+
+«* The base package names (used for svn and src.rpm) should be the 
+upstream name of the software project, always lowercase. Upstream names 
+can contain digits, '+', '_' or '.', but no other special characters. 
+Really exceptionally, uppercase letters can be allowed if there is 
+proper justification or historical reasons.
+* Package names that are built by Mageia packagers from the upstream 
+name by adding suffixes should always use '-' as delimiter (e.g. 
+foo-devel or foo-plugins as derived from the foo package). All '_' and 
+'+' in package names must come from upstream naming! The '.' in package 
+names should only come upstream or standard versioning schemes.
+* The spec file should be named using the %{name}.spec scheme, i.e. the 
+name of the source package and svn directory should be used as the name 
+for the spec.»
+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+Some of you may notice that the newly drafted policy allows upper-case 
+letters in packages as an exception (when justified). This is to follow 
+the current practice (which is not following the current policy, where 
+we have packages like R-base).
+I don't want to raise a heated discussion (there was an inconclusive 
+discussion a long time ago on cooker [*]) about enforcing an all 
+lower-case policy. Not sure a consensus can be reached today, but 
+lower-casing package names should be the default for 99% of the packages 
+in Mageia.
+
+Any comments? Is it indeed clearer this way? Any other conditions on 
+package names we should add?
+
+Best regards,
+-- 
+Malo
+
+[*] http://lists.mandriva.com/cooker/2006-03/msg03396.php
+