Comment # 198 on bug 1082318 from Kristoffer Gronlund

(In reply to Fabian Vogt from comment #197)
> (In reply to Kristoffer Gronlund from comment #196)
> > Is it too late to object to this change, which is completely misguided?
> > 
> > Instead of breaking every single package by changing the meaning of
> > "excludedocs" to mean "let me strip these files from the package", how about
> > adding support for tagging files in an rpm as strippable or optional, so
> > that not only documentation can be dropped when space is at a premium, but
> > any other files that may not be essential for the functionality?
> 
> That's what optional subpackages are for though.
> 
> > That way, every single package would still be OK even without any markup,
> > and packages can be updated to mark files as optional over time. Instead,
> > this %license macro now means that all packages that have used %doc to tag
> > the LICENSE file somehow violate the GPL.
> 
> That excludedocs means that files tagged as %doc are not installed is
> absolutely set in stone and will not change.

I have no problem whatsoever with excludedocs meaning that files tagged as %doc
are not installed.

I have a problem with excludedocs being used in a way that breaks the existing
intention and usage of the %doc tag in spec files. Whoever thought that using
excludedocs to strip packages for inclusion in containers was a good idea was
evidently wrong about that, as it required the introduction of the %license
tag, so that there are now two useless tags: Not only can %doc no longer be
used to simply mark up documentation files as intended because it's being
subverted to mean something it did not do before, but the only reason %license
exists is as a hack to work around the previously mentioned hack.