Re: Issue with Bug#112121: procmail-lib: Recipes belong in /usr/share, not /usr/lib

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>]

On Sat, Sep 15, 2001 at 09:44:23PM -0500, David Starner wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 15, 2001 at 10:30:21PM -0400, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > It's not that hard to do this for a single package, but it is a completely
> > different matter to do it by hand for every newly-installed package.  This
> > is something that frontends should simplify.
> 
> I have over a thousand packages installed, with ~300 README.Debian files.
> I don't anticipate sitting and reading them all, one after another.

Would you knock it off with the flamebait?  I am not suggesting that anyone
be forced to read any number of README.Debian files, just that it will,
quite naturally, become part of the package installation process with the
help of package management UIs.

> And why should I? I just glanced at the xteddy README.Debian; it doesn't
> work right with sawfish, due to various X arcana. If I were using 
> sawfish and had a problem, that would be one of the first files I read.
> As I don't run sawfish, I really don't care.

Not all README.Debians are alike.  Many of them contain information of the
form "here is how Debian's foobar differs from upstream foobar, which you
may be familiar with".  As such, it is not "in case of emergency"
instructions, but a README in the traditional sense, to be read _before_
using the software.

Information about issues which will affect _new_ users of the software
should go there, regardless of whether it has to do with a change from a
previous version, because that is where they are supposed to look.  Changes
which will only affect users of a previous version should display a note if
it's important, otherwise just include a changelog entry (which should be
there in any case).

Upgrading users are not expected to have to read the changelogs _or_
README.Debian to hear about things that will break on their system.

-- 
 - mdz