Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Andrew Savchenko <bircoph@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Cc: qa <qa@g.o>
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] New QA policy: Packages must not disable installing manpages via USE flags
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2019 17:51:08
Message-Id: 20190720205029.3f1feadeee1d6bf583e88233@gentoo.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] New QA policy: Packages must not disable installing manpages via USE flags by "Michał Górny"
1 On Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:25:10 +0200 Michał Górny wrote:
2 > Hello,
3 >
4 > The QA team would like to introduce the following policy:
5 >
6 > """
7 > Packages must not disable installing manpages via USE flags (e.g.
8 > USE=man or USE=doc). If upstream does not ship prebuilt manpages
9 > and building them requires additional dependencies, the maintainer
10 > should build them and ship along with the package.
11 > """
12 >
13 >
14 > Explanatory note:
15 >
16 > This applies to having USE flags that specifically control building
17 > manpages. It obviously does not affect:
18 >
19 > a. USE flags that disable building both a program and its manpage (e.g.
20 > if USE=gui disables building gfrobnicate, not installing gfrobnicate(1)
21 > is correct),
22 >
23 > b. use of LINGUAS to control installed manpages.
24 >
25 >
26 > Rationale:
27 >
28 > Manpages are the basic form of user documentation on Gentoo Linux. Not
29 > installing them is harmful to our users. On the other hand, requiring
30 > additional dependencies is inconvenient. Therefore, packaging prebuilt
31 > manpages (whenever upstream doesn't do that already) is a good
32 > compromise that provides user with documentation without additional
33 > dependencies.
34 >
35 >
36 > What are your comments?
37
38 The basic foundation of Gentoo is freedom of choise for our users.
39 If installing man pages means no additional dependencies, than
40 proposed rule is ok. However if such dependencies are required it is
41 up to users to decide if they wan them or not.
42
43 Having USE=man (or USE=doc) for such purposes is fine. Having
44 USE=man enabled by default in user profile is also fine. Forcing
45 users to install unnecessary dependencies on minimal systems in a
46 no go and turns Gentoo into something else.
47
48 Best regards,
49 Andrew Savchenko

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