Re: Bug#440420: [PROPOSAL] Manual page encoding

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> writes:

> I propose that policy should standardise that we move to using UTF-8 as
> the source encoding for all manual pages since it clearly makes sense to
> do so. This will still need to be specified by each manual page (by
> means of the directory in which it is installed), and it does *not*
> affect what user locales are supported in any way. The
> internationalisation changes in man-db 2.5.0 will arrange for users to
> see pages in their native language when they did not before; I do not
> expect it to cause any users to fail to see pages in their native
> language when they previously did.
>
> Once man-db 2.5.0 is in place, the change in policy to recommend
> installing pages with UTF-8 encoding in a properly marked directory will
> have *no* effect on users, no matter what their locale. It is purely for
> improved maintenance of the system.

Hi Colin,

I assume that now that man-db 2.5.0 is in the archive, the original patch
in this bug report is no longer current and we should now be saying
something different.  We're trying to increase the speed of Policy work,
so hopefully this time we can get a change made in a timely fashion.  :)

Could you send a new patch to document the current recommendations for how
to encode man pages and deal with different locales when you get a chance?

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>