unusable examples in apckages ...

[Sven LUTHER <luther@lambda.u-strasbg.fr>]

Hello, ...

i don't know if this is the right place to speak about this, so if i am wrong,
please direct me to the right place.

I noticed that various packages include (specially -dev packages) includes
examples in the /usr/share/doc/package directory. Often this examples will
just be copies of the directory in the source tree, which is totally unusable
once installed. 

It is unusable, because the example directory makes the assumption that the
directory is in the source tree, and uses files from the upper directory to
compile (example is libsdl1.0-dev, install it and go to the
/usr/share/doc/libsdl1.0-dev/examples/test directory, and try to build that).
Also often the above mentioned exampels comes not yet passed trough
automake/autoconf and friends, which could hinder not a few users to make use
of them.

Thus i think it would be nice that something like the following becomes debian
policy :

------------------------------------------
if a package contains examples that need to be compiled, they must be in such
a state in the package that the user can just copy the directory to its home
directory (or /tmp/ or wherever) and build the examples with no more hassle
than typing ./configure and/or make.
------------------------------------------

You can have a look at the mlgtk package to see one package that conforms to
the above mentioned rule. it is found at /usr/share/doc/mlgtk/examples and
even uncompress the files when building, and decompress them when doing make
clean, leaving the package in a neat state (well dpkg handles badly when you
change a xxx.gz file by a xxx file.).

Please cc any mail to me, as i don't read this mailing list.

Friendly,

Svne LUTHER