Re: Removing the manpage requirement for GUI programs?
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> The current situation is that there are a lot of outdated and/or
> inaccurate manpages, while the --help output contains the same amount of
> information and is guaranteed to be up-to-date.
If the manpage doesn't contain any more information than the help
output, then it probably should be replaced with help2man so that it
stays up to date.
The crux of your argument is that for many GUI programs, manpages
aren't as essential as other forms of documentation, and developer
time would be better spent doing making other improvements.
Policy deals with this correctly by the manpage requirement as a
should requirement. It's a bug when the manpage doesn't exist, but
it's not RC. For some packages, it may not be a bug that can be
properly fixed due to developer-availability and upstream awareness.
I think you'd agree that manpages that were always up-to-date would be
nice for every thing in Debian would be nice, if only we had enough
time to make it all happen.
Don Armstrong
--
The smallest quantity of bread that can be sliced and toasted has yet
to be experimentally determined. In the quantum limit we must
necessarily encounter fundamental toast particles which the author
will unflinchingly designate here as "croutons".
-- Cser, Jim. Nanotechnology and the Physical Limits of Toastability.
AIR 1:3, June, 1995.
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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