Re: A Proposal: Each of Debian Man pages could have a wiki (Main page / Talk Page, etc.) at its bottom, with only Example Code Lines ...
On Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 11:37:07AM +0530, Susmita/Rajib wrote:
... for most complex combinations of codes, with a single line or two of
explanations, if at all necessary.
I think there's a lot of potential for tying together documentation
shipped inside Debian (including manpages) better with documentation
outside (including the wiki).
However, as with all things in Debian, things are best achieved by doing
them yourself; or at least, beginning to, so that there's a concrete
example to explore.
In this case, there are at least two hurdles to overcome, neither of
which should be insurmountable:
1) The source of most man pages in Debian is the upstream packages
themselves. Therefore, to include a Debian-specific addition in
every manpage, Debian package maintainers will need to carry
patches for every man page. For some packages, especially those
which don't already apply any patches, this is some overhead that
a busy maintainer may not wish for.
2) The Debian Wiki has an unclear copyright situation. The content of
wiki pages is not necessarily compatible with the Debian Free
Software Guidelines (DFSG), and so Wiki content cannot be included
in Debian packages without further checks. (This is something I've
been trying to resolve for literally a decade or more, on and off.
Mostly off.)
A good place to start would be finding a single package/program/manpage
that would benefit from linking out to a wiki page, and doing so, in
order to demonstrate the concept clearly.
--
Please do not CC me for listmail.
👱🏻 Jonathan Dowland
✎ jmtd@debian.org
🔗 https://jmtd.net
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