Re: Please unblock tex-common documentation update
Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 15, 2007 at 10:02:24AM +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
>> which adds a russian debconf translation and registers documentation in
>> section "TeX", consistent with the other packages in etch.
>
> Consistent with what other packages in etch?
The teTeX packages at least, and I hope some other TeX-related packages,
too. I'm not aware of texlive registering its documentation with
doc-base.
> According to the doc-base
> documentation, doc-base sections are supposed to follow the Debian Menu
> subpolicy, and /usr/share/doc/debian-policy/menu-policy.txt.gz on my system
> mentions no Apps/TeX section.
Yes, that's true. But it's also true that doc-base is basically
unmaintained and has a five-year old bug, #109431 (and see also
#171955), in which the need to change the available sections is
acknowledged by everyone involved. Meanwhile, the Debian menu structure
has been rewritten at least once, but never with documentation in mind.
Therefore I[1] believe that it is inadequate to base doc-base sections on
Debian menu sections, at least at the moment. Since nobody seems to
care for doc-base, I also don't expect any centralized policy decision
for separate doc-base grouping in the near future.
Moreover, TeX does *not* fit into Apps/Text in the menu system, neither
- in my view - in the current system, nor in the new system according to
debian-policy proposal #361418:
Text
Text oriented tools like dictionaries, OCR,
translation and text analysis software etc.
kdrill, stardict, turkey
If at all, it rather fits into office, but I fear *I* would never look
for it there. Given the frequent wishes to have a separate section and
the practically non-existing policy for doc-base, we decided to use one.
This also means to try to fix the doc-base bug by simply showing that an
alternative is viable - the usually preferred way of changing policy
decisions in Debian.
Regards, Frank
[1] and others, see
e.g. http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2005/10/msg00041.html, Bill
is the proponent of the new menu structure
--
Dr. Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
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