Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] New QA policy: Packages must not disable installing manpages via USE flags

[Andrew Savchenko]

On Sat, 20 Jul 2019 20:28:39 +0200 Michał Górny wrote:
> On Sat, 2019-07-20 at 20:50 +0300, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
> > On Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:25:10 +0200 Michał Górny wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > The QA team would like to introduce the following policy:
> > >
> > > """
> > > Packages must not disable installing manpages via USE flags (e.g.
> > > USE=man or USE=doc).  If upstream does not ship prebuilt manpages
> > > and building them requires additional dependencies, the maintainer
> > > should build them and ship along with the package.
> > > """
> > >
> > >
> > > Explanatory note:
> > >
> > > This applies to having USE flags that specifically control building
> > > manpages.  It obviously does not affect:
> > >
> > > a. USE flags that disable building both a program and its manpage (e.g.
> > > if USE=gui disables building gfrobnicate, not installing gfrobnicate(1)
> > > is correct),
> > >
> > > b. use of LINGUAS to control installed manpages.
> > >
> > >
> > > Rationale:
> > >
> > > Manpages are the basic form of user documentation on Gentoo Linux.  Not
> > > installing them is harmful to our users.  On the other hand, requiring
> > > additional dependencies is inconvenient.  Therefore, packaging prebuilt
> > > manpages (whenever upstream doesn't do that already) is a good
> > > compromise that provides user with documentation without additional
> > > dependencies.
> > >
> > >
> > > What are your comments?
> >
> > The basic foundation of Gentoo is freedom of choise for our users.
> > If installing man pages means no additional dependencies, than
> > proposed rule is ok. However if such dependencies are required it is
> > up to users to decide if they wan them or not.
> >
> > Having USE=man (or USE=doc) for such purposes is fine. Having
> > USE=man enabled by default in user profile is also fine. Forcing
> > users to install unnecessary dependencies on minimal systems in a
> > no go and turns Gentoo into something else.
> >
>
> Could you please read the proposed policy?  It explicitly says you are
> *not* supposed to force extra deps on users but build manpages for them.

Could you please what the other developers have already replied to
you on this matter? This will be a significant increase in
maintenance burden for both developers and advanced users without
much to gain.

Best regards,
Andrew Savchenko