> >You can't fix the browsers, because we don't have the source for important > >browsers like netscape. > > You mean the Debian Project caving in and changing its standards because > some non free product cannot be changed? Where is our commitment to free > software?
We shouldn't be changing the way browsers work. Most browsers follow the HTTP/1.0 or 1.1 standard - including Netscape - and I don't think it's smart to develop a "debian-specific" HTTP protocol extension -- that's what you are suggesting, in essence. (or maybe you just mean modifying the behaviour on file:/ URL's - I guess there isn't really a defined standard protocol for handling that sort of thing - it's highly browser dependent. We shouldn't be using that feature if it's so undefined - maybe you want to draft an RFC or a W3C standard? ) I really only see two possible outcomes to this debate: 1) Store HTML files uncompressed and don't munge the links - all web browsers will work, no web server required - wasteful of disk space (particularily for large documentation packages, like the Java JDK docs, or info-style "books") - note that these types of documents tend to be monolithic, so they could be put into separate optional documentation packages - the system administrator could use a compressed filesystem like e2compr to conserve disk space 2) Store HTML files compressed and munge the links with a tool like fixhrefgz - Lynx and Netscape work with no web server required (I think) - other web browsers will work, if they use a web server such as boa, or a web server and dwww - currently, at least on my system, not a single documentation package with .html.gz files has had the links fixed so that it works when browsing directly from the filesystem (and I maintain two of those packages, oops - even worse the jdk1.1 docs have compressed and uncompressed files - arrrgh) - it's extra work for the developers, and error prone too - I think Lars was advocating this, and I was too Christoph seems to be advocating: 3) Store HTML files compressed, and don't munge the links - Lynx (and others) might work without a web server if they were modified - Netscape wouldn't work without a web server - other web browsers will work, if they use a web server such as boa, or a web server and dwww I was advocating solution #2 - but after looking at the current state of the documentation - I think I'm going to switch to solution #1 - storing uncompressed HTML files. We're not really talking about a large amount of disk space on the base system, unless the user installs documentation packages such as the Java JDK docs. Plus - hard disks are cheap - I just bought a 5GB drive for $600 CDN. And dwww will probably evolve to make it easy to view the documentation that is installed on a remote system (on the Internet or via an Intranet). Plus, finally, it's the simplest solution. Cheers, - Jim
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