On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 11:37 PM, Ian Jackson
<ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Michael Stapelberg writes ("manpages.debian.org has been modernized!"):
>> https://manpages.debian.org has been modernized!
>
> Awesome! Thanks to everyone.
>
>> https://github.com/Debian/debiman. In case you would like to use it to
>> run a similar manpage repository (or convert your existing manpage
>> repository to it), we’d love to help you out; just send an email to
>> stapelberg AT debian DOT org.
>
> As you might expect, I'm uncomfortable about the use of the
> proprietary github service for this. I realise that we don't
> necessarily have entirely comparable alternatives, but Free Software
> needs free tools.[1]
I agree. However, I prioritize “free software needs people who work on
it”, and by using GitHub, contributions are made significantly easier
for a large number of people.
In my personal experience, I can say that I would not be able to spend
_nearly_ as much of my time on FOSS if it weren’t for GitHub’s
convenient web interface.
>
> Also, I think the exact running version of Debian services should be
> publicly available. And, unless this is made so easy that the service
> operators don't have to think about it, it will always fall behind.
> So I think this should be done automatically.
All pages on manpages.debian.org already include the git revision at
the bottom of the page, e.g.:
debiman c17f615, see github.com/Debian/debiman
Hence, you can already check out the exact running version. Is that
not sufficient?
(Caveat: the Debian assets are not currently in git. This is already
on my TODO list, though.)
>
> Would you accept a patch to make debiman copy its own source code,
> including git history, to its output ? Then there could be a `source
> code for this manpage generator' link on each page, or maybe in the
> information page. I have done this for a few programs I have written
> and it's surprisingly easy. When it's done, you will always be
> publishing your own up to date source code.
>
> Speaking of the information page, if you click on the info links you
> get this
> https://manpages.debian.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=info.html
> which seems out of date.
Will be updated soon, thanks.
>
>> We’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts. Either contact us via an
>> issue on https://github.com/Debian/debiman/issues/, or send an email
>> to the debian-doc mailing list (see
>> https://lists.debian.org/debian-doc/).
>
> If we created a pseudopackage in the Debian bug system, would you use
> it instead ? It's one thing to use github as a generic git hosting
> server but I really don't want us to be constructing our issue tracker
> data in github's databases.
I personally find the Debian bug system very uncomfortable to use. I
will begrudgingly accept reports made via the BTS, as I do for the
Debian packages I maintain. I don’t want to give up using GitHub’s
issue tracker, though, for my convenience and the convenience of our
users.
--
Best regards,
Michael
