At 04:08 PM 3/19/00, Adam Di Carlo wrote:
It doesn't make sense to me to put windows EOL conventions on the text file. Instead, perhaps the file should be README.txt instead of README. FTP should be doing ASCII transfer and auto-converting. HTTP browsers should be using MIME type text/plain and also auto-converting. Really, there is no need to use *anything* but Unix EOL conventions.
This still leaves the case of an MS Dos/Win user looking at a CD. Html is good, but some people don't have browsers or other viewing facilities.
Wordpad, at least in recent NT's, can handle Unix line end conventions, but that is not the default document viewer. I think most recent ms-windows flavors have quickview, which may know how to handle the line ends (I'm not sure of that).
Please please please don't put DOS-centric stuff into Debian!
Well, can we achieve world domination without making it easy for the DOS user to switch? If the very first file they open is unreadable, it is likely to be off-putting.
Readme.txt (rather than readme.) would make life easier for MS-land, but it probably does need MS line ends to work well. Perhaps we should generate two versions of the file? I know this is going down a slippery slope ....
-- .....Adam Di Carlo....adam@onShore.com.....<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>