Greetings Daniele, [I have cc'd you, since I do not know if you are subscribed to -policy]
* Daniele Cruciani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [001110 06:37]: > I think this is the right place for asking change on policy > about doc-base registering of package. Sadly, I'm not sure what you are proposing can realistically be accomplished in an organization such as Debian. (BTW, just for kicks, take a look at OpenBSD's manual pages. Perhaps such quality is shared amongst all the BSDs; I've only used OpenBSD.) The major differences between OpenBSD and Debian is that OpenBSD (and the other BSDs) is the origin of the programs. We take software from wherever we can. They write/modify theirs as they see fit, and can therefore make all the documentation fit in one place. I think we also have a lot more software readily available than the BSDs, though there is a much more clear distinction between 'core OS' and 'add-ons' in those circles... Debian, on the other hand, has many old pieces of software with manual pages, GNU software with a philosophical bent against manpages (they use info instead), and software from authors that either write their own documentation software (eg, enlightenment's dox), or distribute html/postscript/tex documentation. There once was (still is?) the ability to install some programs on debian that would turn http://localhost/doc/ or something similar into a way of reading many of the sources of info at once -- man, info, html, what is distributed in /usr/[share/]doc. Take a look at doc-central. All in all, the various authors distribute docs how they feel, and until someone cares enough (you? :) to merge all of the information into one place, it just won't get done. (Point of proof -- on my machine with roughly 500 packages installed (good god that is a lot of packages :) there are roughly 350 manpages installed that point to the "undocumented" manpage. Even though our policy currently requires manpages of programs in packages, maintainers just end up using the undocumented page to make users/lintian be quiet.) It would seem to me that the only method of making it happen is to care enough about it to do it yourself. -- ``Oh Lord; Ooh you are so big; So absolutely huge; Gosh we're all really impressed down here, I can tell you.''
