Explain the pattern for optional Serde derives

serde/Cargo.toml

@@ -29,14 +29,30 @@ serde_derive = { version = "1.0", path = "../serde_derive" }
 [features]
 default = ["std"]
 
-# Re-export the derive(Serialize, Deserialize) macros. This is specifically
-# intended for library crates that provide optional Serde impls behind a Cargo
-# cfg of their own. All other crates should depend on serde_derive directly.
+# Re-export the derive(Serialize, Deserialize) macros. This is intended for
+# library crates that provide optional Serde impls behind a Cargo cfg of their
+# own.
+#
+# Mainly this is a workaround for limitations associated with
+# rust-lang/cargo#1286 in which a library crate cannot use one "serde" cfg in
+# Cargo to enable dependencies on both serde and serde_derive crates.
+#
+# The recommended way to provide optional Serde support that requires derive is
+# as follows. In particular, please do not name your library's Serde feature
+# anything other than "serde".
+#
+#     [dependencies]
+#     serde = { version = "1.0", optional = true, features = ["derive"] }
+#
+# Within the library, these optional Serde derives would be written like this.
+#
+#     #[cfg(feature = "serde")]
+#     #[macro_use]
+#     extern crate serde;
+#
+#     #[cfg_attr(feature = "serde", derive(Serialize, Deserialize))]
+#     struct ...
 #
-# Please refer to the long comment above the line `pub use serde_derive::*` in
-# src/lib.rs before enabling this feature. If you think you need this feature
-# and your use case does not precisely match the one described in the comment,
-# please open an issue to let us know about your use case.
 derive = ["serde_derive"]
 
 # Provide impls for common standard library types like Vec<T> and HashMap<K, V>.