Bug#40706: AMENDMENT 17/7/99] /usr/share/doc vs. /usr/doc transition

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On 17 Jul 1999, Manoj Srivastava wrote:

>         * We should not break backwards compatibility during the transition
>           period. This is a quality of implementation issue
> 
>           During the transition, we need to provide backwards
>           compatibility, firstly for programs ike `dwww', and `dhelp', and
>           also for our users who have gotten used to looking under a single
>           dir (`/usr/doc/') for docs (`/usr/doc/`package''). During the
>           transition, the documentation could be in in two places, and that
>           is not good

Please note that when we switched from /usr/doc/copyright/package to
/usr/doc/package/copyright we didn't create any smylinks "for backwards
compatibility".

I understand that programs like dwww or dhelp will have to look
in both directories, but this may be done without the symlinks.

So, the *only* remaining reason for the symlinks is the users who have
gotten used to look under /usr/doc. Well, they will have to get used to
look under /usr/share/doc sooner or later, so this will not help very
much. This proposal would just postpone the time when people will have to
look at /usr/share/doc.

By comparison, it is not so much inconvenience to look at /usr/share/doc
and /usr/doc when manually looking for documentation, because when a user
finds what he/she is looking for, ordinarily he/she concentrates on
actually *reading* the docs, so the actual place where to find the docs
is not so much important as long as the docs are there.

Thanks.

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