doc: Discourage software bundling.

Fixes <http://bugs.gnu.org/24008>.
Suggested by ng0 <ng0@we.make.ritual.n0.is>.

* doc/contributing.texi (Submitting Patches): Add item about bundling.
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Ludovic Courtès 2016-07-28 15:41:00 +02:00
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@ -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