On 22-Aug-00, 23:12 (CDT), Daniel Barclay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Some packages don't have a documentation directory at all.
Then they are in violation of the Debian policy. Current policy requires that /usr/doc/<package> exist (possibly as a symlink to /usr/share/doc/<package>). > Some others do but their files are so scrambled that you can't > tell which are current, which are obsolete (because of, e.g., > Debian clean-up of how the package works), etc., without > reading each file. It is not the maintainer's job to keep a packages upstream documentation up-to-date. Sorry, but that's the way it is. If the maintainer does something to the package obsoletes or otherwise breaks the upstream documentation, then that info *should* be in changelog.Debian.gz, if nowhere else. > PLEASE remember what changes, especially for the user installing > the software, between building and installing from source > tarballs vs. installing distribution packages: [snip description of README, etc.] If that information is provided by the upstream package, then it should be included in the doc directory, under the same name. Policy specifically allows for build and installation instructions to be omitted, but other materials should be included. That they are not is a bug in the package, not in policy. > Debian packages don't provide that orientation reliably at all. ls -l /usr/doc/foo dpkg -L foo |grep bin dpkg -L foo |grep man dpkg -L foo |grep info works for *every* package. (Yes, I know it would be more efficient to combine into one dpkg -L command, I left it as an exercise for the reader.) > We do have directory /usr/share/doc/<package>/ (well, for some > packages), You're looking in the wrong place -- we haven't completed the transition to /usr/share/doc yet -- the canonical place is /usr/doc. Look, I share some of your frustrations. But the problem is with individual packages not included the upstream materials, or the lack of upstream materials. If a maintainer chooses to augment what's upstream that's great. Writing a policy requirement for such is not. Steve