Re: Documentation Policy

[Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>]

Christian Schwarz <schwarz@monet.m.isar.de> wrote:
> 
>      If the documentation files in all available formats do not require
>      more than 100k of disk space _together_, they may be included in the
>      "main" package. Otherwise, the will have to be distributed in
>      seperate packages, one for each format.
> 

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'' ?

This would have at least two beneficial effects:

  o  Reduce the size of the ftp archive, by not duplicating documentation
     between different architectures.

  o  Make it much easier to install documentation, without the software
     it documents, and vice versa.

For systems where disk space is tight, it would make it much easier to avoid 
wasting space on docs.

Being able to install docs. without software would be useful, since it would 
allow you to have a central documentation server (on an Intranet server say).

These two features could save considerable volumes of disk space on large 
sites.

It would be also be useful (for me at least) to have documentation for 
software my clients use, but I do not.

We could also install all the documentation for everything in Debian on a Web 
server.  ---  Are we already doing this ?   Even if we are, I'm sure it would 
be easier if every package `foo' had one or more associated `foo-doc' packages.

Cheers, Phil.




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