Re: HTML format documentation

[Richard Stallman]

    > Yes, thank you, I know this.  This is what I do.  But pardon me, this
    > is by no means something I consider ``natural''.  

I said this is the natural way to "follow the spec".  Whether it seems
entirely natural as a way to do the job is not the question.

We are not going to change the spec just to make implementations more
elegant.  There are more important things at stake.  Please don't ask
me to make changes for such minor reasons.

    To expand on Akim's penultimate question, what should happen in the case
    that the builder changes his mind:

            ./configure
            make prefix=/foo
            make prefix=/bar

That is improper usage of the feature; it is undefined.
Whatever happens is ok.

    If the first, then what is the harm in requiring it to be set at configure
    time?

It is an incompatible change in the spec, and that is very bad.