[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: policy change to 3.0.0: not before release? (was: Re: when move /usr/doc -> /usr/share/doc ?



On Thu, 01 Jul 1999, Chris Lawrence wrote:

> (And /usr/share/doc could be dealt with with some hacks to dpkg, if
> we expect all of /usr/doc to move... just make potato's dpkg rewrite
> the filenames and modify /var/lib/dpkg/package.list accordingly.)

It's not that easy. Don't forget, that some programs (e.g. xfig)
directly access their documentation at /usr/doc/<package>/<foo>. If
you extend dpkg to move these file to /usr/share/doc/<package>/<foo>,
the programs will fail to access the documentation.
 
The only way of a smooth transition seems to use
/usr/share/doc/<package> for new packages with a symmlink
/usr/doc/<package> pointing to /usr/share/doc/<package> being
_required_ (this symlink should be required by the policy). In the far 
future, when every package moved it's documentation to /usr/share/doc, 
we can begin removing these symlinks.

So users don't have to search for documentation (it is still available 
as /usr/doc/<package> and in the far future as
/usr/share/doc/<package>) and also web servers can access the
documentation (you have to enable "follow-symlinks" or something like
this for /usr/doc, but this may be already needed, because of the
/usr/doc/<package1> -> /usr/doc/<package2> symlinks which already
exist). 

Ciao

        Roland

-- 
 * roland@spinnaker.de * http://www.spinnaker.de/ *
 PGP: 1024/DD08DD6D   2D E7 CC DE D5 8D 78 BE  3C A0 A4 F1 4B 09 CE AF


Reply to: