Bug#51262: Suggestion: Packages should carry a manpage
On Sun, Nov 28, 1999 at 07:16:19PM +0100, Goswin Brederlow wrote:
> brian@debian.org (Brian Mays) writes:
>
> > > Policy says that any binary must come with a manpage. I would like to
> > > have the same for packages.
> >
> > For every package? You must be kidding!!
> >
> > > I just looked for a parser generator that outputs C++ code and found
> > > pccts. After installation I tried "man pccts", but that failed.
> > > /usr/doc/pccts doesn't contain examples, so how do I use the thing?
> >
> > > pccts in fact contains several binaries, but non is called pccts. The
> > > main binary is called antlr and has a good manpage.
> >
> > > My suggestion is now, that "man pccts" should either point to the
> > > main binaries manpage or show a page that gives a one-line description
> > > of the binaries of the package or one that has just relevant "see
> > > also: xxx" entries.
> >
> > > What do you think?
> >
> > While I agree that it is probably a good idea for large packages, with
> > many binaries, to provide such a man page (in section 7, of course), it
> > makes no sense for packages in general. Personally, I think that such
> > policy would be a waste of our developers' time to write these pages and
> > a waste of disk space to store them.
>
> In the case of most packages the main binary will be named just like
> the package, like bash, zsh, gcc,... Of cause I don´t want another
> manpage for the gcc package, the one for gcc is enough.
>
> It should be rare that a package doesn´t contain a binary thats called
> after the package and only for those a seperate manpage or a link to
> the main programs manpage should be provided.
What about docs ?
What about themes ?
Do you want them to contain manpage ?
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