Re: policy summary (new packages without man pages)
On 13-Jan-00, 16:39 (CST), Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 13, 2000 at 12:01:33AM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > Richard Braakman writes ("Re: policy summary"):
> > > Frankly, I like the idea. I think packages are being created far too
> > > lightly these days. Writing a manpage for the program takes a bit of
> > > thought and research, and is useful to boot. If a maintainer isn't
> > > prepared to do that much for the package, then I say he has no business
> > > packaging it.
> >
> > Nonsense.
> >
> > The solution to there being too many packages is not to arbitrarily
> > restrict the available packages to ones whose maintainers or authors
> > are less busy (and probably less good ...)
>
> [snip]
>
> What I'm really trying to say is that what we should expect from
> a maintainer is _commitment_. If writing a manpage or two is
> a major obstacle to creating a new package, then I think that
> commitment is lacking, and it would be better not to claim that
> package at all. If it's useful, someone else will be along to
> package it.
It is not the job of the Debian maintainer to write the upstream
package. The job of the Debian maintainer is to package the
existing upstream package in a form convenient for Debian users in
a way that is complementary to the rest of the system.
I think I just realized that I strongly disagree with the policy
item requiring manpages for each binary. I agree that the maintainer
should include any pages provided in the upstream package, and should
be *encouraged* to include any other useful material that they feel
inspired to write (especially if they can say "use 'info foo' for
documentation on foo", but the upstream author is basically responsible
for the contents of their software.
The maintainer is providing a useful service by configuring and building
the software for Debian, the lack of a few manpages is certainly less
inconvenient than having the user download, build and install it in
/usr/local, at which point they would still not have the manpage for
foo.
Steve
--
Steve Greenland <vmole@swbell.net>
(Please do not CC me on mail sent to this list; I subscribe to and read
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