Re: Documentation Policy

[Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>]

> On Tue, 24 Jun 1997, Philip Hands wrote:
> 
> > I think we should aim to get all documentation into separate packages.
> > 
> > Would it not be possible to make the package building tools (deb-make,
> > debstd etc.) assume a simplest case of ``single binary, and single
> > docs package'' rather than the current ``single binary'' ?

Mark Baker <mnb20@eddie.sonnet.co.uk> writes:
> Anything with info or html docs or significant other files I can agree with;
> many programs only have a couple of readme files and a man page, and putting
> them in a separate package seems a little silly. (and at least the readme
> file definitely should be in the main package even if there is a separate
> documentation package)

I agree that it is a little silly, and also that the README should be in the 
binary package (possibly as well as in the docs package ?), but I cannot see 
how to easily provide a way of installing _all_ the docs for _all_ packages, 
without first separating the docs. out.

There is of course a problem with trying to install all the documentation on a 
machine, since some conflicting packages provide man pages with overlapping 
names.  On the other hand we cannot just use the same conflicts as the binary 
packages --- For example:

  I use qmail on all local systems, but some of my clients use sendmail.

  I would like to install the documentation for sendmail, despite the fact that
  it conflicts with qmail.

Maybe we need a --documentation=(yes|no|only) option for dpkg -i. 

Cheers, Phil.




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