Re: Documentation and Usability
Kent writes:
> This is a peeve of mine. I was under the impression that nothing got into
> the archives without a man page, even if the man page said nothing more
> than "sorry, there's no information here".
>From Debian-Policy:
12.1 Manual pages
You should install manual pages in nroff source form, in appropriate
places under /usr/share/man. You should only use sections 1 to 9 (see
the FHS for more details). You must not install a preformatted "cat
page".
Each program, utility, and function should have an associated manual
page included in the same package. It is suggested that all
configuration files also have a manual page included as well. Manual
pages for protocols and other auxiliary things are optional.
If no manual page is available, this is considered as a bug and should
be reported to the Debian Bug Tracking System (the maintainer of the
package is allowed to write this bug report themselves, if they so
desire). Do not close the bug report until a proper manpage is
available.[66]
You may forward a complaint about a missing manpage to the upstream
authors, and mark the bug as forwarded in the Debian bug tracking
system. Even though the GNU Project do not in general consider the lack
of a manpage to be a bug, we do; if they tell you that they don't
consider it a bug you should leave the bug in our bug tracking system
open anyway.
So, when you find a program without a man page file a bug report.
Preferably with a man page included.
--
John Hasler
john@dhh.gt.org (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI
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