As noted when we were giving FPC latest Java guidelines to review, we are in process of restructuring them in more significant ways.

One of the most important aspects is moving documentation of tools outside of guidelines. Some parts of current Java guidelins[1-6] are prime examples of things that we are planning to move out of guidelines and into separate "Java Packaging HOWTO" document.

Other guidelines probably don't suffer from this as much as Java ones (50% of text is description of how to use tools), but still...

Goal is of course not to circumvent Fedora policies but make sure that guidelines contain the policy, whereas real documentation contains descriptions of how to do things. In other words guidelines should IMO contain *what* (not) to do, and other documents should tell packagers *how* to do it.

Any thoughts on the matter? It will be some time before we submit an update to guidelines either way, but I like early feedback :-)

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Java#add_maven_depmap_macro [2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Java#Additional_mappings [3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Java#Alternative_JAR_file_names [4] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Java#Single_artifact_per_package [5] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Java#Assignment_of_the_Maven_artifa... [6] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Java#Patching_Maven_pom.xml_files