Package: debian-policy Version: 3.9.2 Severity: wishlist On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 09:17:16PM +0100, Iustin Pop wrote: > On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 08:22:52AM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > > Hi, > > > > During a recent discussion on debian-devel about multiarch, it was shown > > that gzip does not always produce the exact same output from a given > > input file. > > > > While it was shown that removing the requirement to compress > > documentation would not solve the issue (i.e., the problem was larger > > than just the compressed files), I still think removing the requirement > > to compress files is a good thing to do. > > > > Rationale: > > - While I'm sure compressing files would have been a useful thing to do > > in the days of 500MB-harddisks, the same is no longer true for today's > > hundreds-of-gigabytes harddisks. A simple test[1] shows that the > > increase in diskspace is negligible in relation to today's disk sizes. > > - In the cases where the increase in diskspace would be significant, > > i.e. in embedded systems, the best option is to use emdebian, which > > already routinely removes *all* documentation from the system as part > > of the modifications they make to Debian proper; so this change would > > not impact embedded users. > > - Compressing documentation files incurs an additional step on the user > > who wants to read said documentation. Yes, there is zless and zmore. > > However, there is no ziceweasel, zpdf-reader[2] or zgv. Even if such > > tools do exist, we would still require that users either know these > > tools exist and how to get them, or to decompress files before reading > > them. > > > > As such, I believe the requirement to compress files is an anachronism > > that we should get rid of. > > > > Thoughts? > > Good idea, seconded.
That makes three; while the proposal definitely needs more work, I think that makes it time to file a bug on this so it can be properly tracked. One thing I haven't talked about yet is man and info pages. While I feel very strongly that we shouldn't compress files under /usr/share/doc anymore, I don't feel as strongly about man and info pages. Yes, these are documentation as well; but since nobody reads man or info pages except through tools that all support transparant decompression, the question then becomes what sets them apart from other documentation. I guess the answer to that question is the fact that you start reading documentation under /usr/share/doc with a filename, whereas you start reading man or info pages with a keyword. As such, how this documentation is stored is a technical detail; not so when you need to use a filename. -- The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by the following formula: pi zz a -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120220235142.gm4...@grep.be
