Re: Requirement for a “proper manpage” for every command

[Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org>]

Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:

> I'm having a conversation with a Debian packager regarding a manpage
> that, currently, is a mere placeholder saying “please see foocommand
> --help”, giving none of the useful information normally found in a
> manpage.
...
> I have submitted a manpage as a patch. However, that response pretty
> much guarantees that the maintainer won't be taking the initiative to
> keep the manpage up to date.

How about submitting a patch to use help2man instead?

http://www.gnu.org/software/help2man/

Then the man page will be kept up to date with --help output.

Possibly the document around the man page requirement could point to
help2man as a quick solution in case there is useful --help output but
no man page.

/Simon