From d222522edf70cdac6cee7b4ab8fa1bfbf0a7ba9c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Ludovic=20Court=C3=A8s?= Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 15:41:00 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] doc: Discourage software bundling. Fixes . Suggested by ng0 . * doc/contributing.texi (Submitting Patches): Add item about bundling. --- doc/contributing.texi | 14 ++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 14 insertions(+) diff --git a/doc/contributing.texi b/doc/contributing.texi index a3684a5e1d..18d891db4e 100644 --- a/doc/contributing.texi +++ b/doc/contributing.texi @@ -288,6 +288,20 @@ name of the new or modified package, and fix any errors it reports Make sure the package builds on your platform, using @code{guix build @var{package}}. +@item +@cindex bundling +Make sure the package does not use bundled copies of software already +available as separate packages. + +Sometimes, packages include copies of the source code of their +dependencies as a convenience for users. However, as a distribution, we +want to make sure that such packages end up using the copy we already +have in the distribution, if there is one. This improves resource usage +(the dependency is built and stored only once), and allows the +distribution to make transverse changes such as applying security +updates for a given software package in a single place and have them +affect the whole system---something that bundled copies prevent. + @item Take a look at the profile reported by @command{guix size} (@pxref{Invoking guix size}). This will allow you to notice references