Re: (docbook-tools) Re: Playing with the spec
* Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> wrote:
[I've snipped the details, since I'm not packaging for any distribution
and can't be of much help here. I've read them though.]
> I do not think a standard like this should dictate the *how*,
> just the *what* (if I may use the terms). ANd the what should be the
> minimal required for interoperability.
>
> I fail to see why directories with version embedded are
> required, given a catalog, and I fail to see why a script is
> required, since there are perfectly good ways for people to construct
> the catalog file that ware less susceptible to failure than a script
> that edits files.
To put this in other words: Actually we need common packages for this,
so distributors can share packages and could start with a common
base-distribution of SGML-stuff on Linux. This is limited by the
limitations and differences of the package-systems. You can't have
identical packages which have to handle this stuff in Redhat, Debian or
even FreeBSD and Solaris.
So: Would it be possible to agree on a common package format just for
SGML-stuff? Say "everything SGML-specific but no executables", which
fits nicely in the rationale for /usr/share in LSB (same OS but
architecture-inspecific). This way these packages would just have to
care about the contents of one directory (say in /usr/share/sgml) and a
common way to handle the catalog. We don't have to agree on the
directory layout now, if we agree on an interface. LSB is a lot about
interfaces. Just see at the Initscripts management proposal posted
lately by Theodore Y. Ts'o to get this right. Requiring just copying in
some directory to /usr/share/sgml and a call to "install-catalog" to get
the catalog-stuff done would allow to start on this.
Jochem
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