Re: Multi-binary packages and documentation directories
On Wed, 1 Jan 1997, Chris Fearnley wrote:
> 'Guy Maor wrote:'
> >
> >Tom Lees <tom@lpsg.demon.co.uk> writes:
> >
> >> What exactly is the correct place for multi-binary packages to place their
> >> documentation
> >
> >For the specific case of shared libs, I've been making only one
> >directory, libreadline2 for example, and putting documentation for
> >both libreadline2 and libreadline2-dev in it. There is only one
> >copyright and changelog file, installed by libreadline2.
> >
> >For related packages which are not shared libraries, I think a symlink
> >in /usr/doc is appropriate.
>
> It seems elegant to me to have /usr/doc/<source-pkg-name> instead of
> <pkg-name>. Since the whole point of a multi-binary package is that
> it comes from the same source. I think the exception would be the
> source package that wants multiple directories under /usr/doc. Can
> the Policy manual section 5.3 be revised to indicate this?
>
> Unless someone sees a flaw with this, I'll change my multi-binary
> package to behave in this way.
>
Although I no longer maintain the pine package (thanks Daniel!) I can
speak to this issue with reguard to pine. The pine source can create a
pine binary, a pico binary, and and imapd binary (no longer created from
the pine source). Each of these binary packages have their own example
files and seperate docs for each, although they all go under the same
copyright. For this package it makes sense to have seperate docs
directories for each binary package.
Another reason for seperating docs by binary package is that users may
have no knowledge about which source package the particular binary is
created by. (Yes I know that some research in the control file will reveal
this, but it's not clear that such research should be necessary) The
natural place to look for docs on a particular binary package is under
that package name.
If the docs are largely/completely duplicated between the binary packages,
a link to the main package docs file would provide easy access to this
info without growing the disk unnecessarily.
??
Dwarf
------------ --------------
aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (904) 656-9769
Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road
e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308
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