Re: Bug#1737: missing man pages for accouting commands

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Dirk Eddelbuettel writes ("Re: Bug#1737: missing man pages for accouting commands "):
> I am sure I once saw an explicit statement saying that the GNU operating
> system will use info as its main source of documentation, but I can't
> remember where that was. There is a preference for info over man with GNU and
> the FSF that I take for granted.

There is such a statement in the GNU Coding Standards.

However, the GNU Coding Standards are widely acknowledge to contain a
lot of policy- and personal-aesthetics-driven stuff, as well as useful
information and advice.

This aspect - the recommendation to use Texinfo rather than manpages -
seems to be particularly unpopular with many non-GNU-Project
programmers.

In any case, we are not the GNU Project, and their coding standards do
not apply.

I think we should do as whoever it was suggested: we should keep the
bug open until we have a manpage, and if the upstream author has a
fervent hatred of manpages we keep the manpage in our diffs rather
than leaving it up to the upstream author.

If the package maintainer or anyone else has the time to write and
maintain the page, so much the better.  Otherwise the bug will just
have to stay open.

Ian.