Hi Katharina, No, that is not the case. readthedocs.org (which hosts docs.couchdb.org for us) still auto-builds PDF and EPUB documentation. You'll still have access to that for as long as readthedocs.org sticks around (and as long as we continue to use them to host our online docs, which is for the foreseeable future). No worries!
This just means that PDF (and EPUB, incidentally) is not automatically built as part of our /internal/ release process -- and not built automatically as part of our /testing/ procedure. If you're downloading the CouchDB documentaiton from source, you can still build PDFs by running make pdf though it sounds like you're not working with our source directly. And yes, we're trying to increase the velocity of our project ;) Best, Joan ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Katharina Hößel" <k.hoes...@mailbox.org> > To: dev@couchdb.apache.org > Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2017 5:26:08 PM > Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] Drop PDF / texinfo documentation builds > > Wow, that change happened more quickly than I expected. I assume this > means that there will be no PDF file available for download - just > HTML > and EPUB? > > If that's the case, there is one downside I'm seeing: The PDF is > currently the only way to properly quote the CouchDB docs in > scientific > work. > > When I'm writing a thesis/paper/etc, refering to the large PDF file > with page numbers is a more feasible option than refering to > docs.couchdb.org - because you have to add a single bibliography > entry > for every unique URL you are citing. > With a PDF, just add one single bib entry, and then cite pages. > Having > a canonical version of the document (such as [1]) makes sure every > reviewer sees the same version of your document. Perfect. > > Apart from that, even in 2017, I feel that PDF files still have major > advantages regarding offline usage, portability and printability that > HTML and EPUB cannot offer (yet). > > I'd also be interested if there are any solid numbers to compare > downloads of different formats of the docs via [2]. > > [1] https://media.readthedocs.org/pdf/couchdb/latest/couchdb.pdf > [2] http://docs.couchdb.org/en/2.0.0/download.html > > > > Am Sat, 18 Mar 2017 00:55:43 -0400 (EDT) > schrieb Joan Touzet <woh...@apache.org>: > > > Hi everyone, > > > > I'd like to propose dropping the PDF and texinfo targets from our > > documentation build, or at the very least, having them not be part > > of > > the default target / not standard deliverables for the project. > > > > We'd continue to build HTML documentation as part of the workflow, > > naturally, as well as the man pages. > > > > I don't have any solid numbers, but I'm fairly sure most people use > > https://docs.couchdb.org/ or a locally installed copy for their > > documentation for CouchDB rather than the PDF documentation. I > > personally can't remember the last time I opened the docs in PDF > > form. I also have never seen anyone refer to the PDF docs on the > > mailing lists, IRC or Slack when asking for advice or support. > > > > I've also never seen anyone use or talk about the texinfo target, > > and > > I've not used them myself. > > > > Dropping this dependency will allow us to drop TeX/LaTeX from our > > build chain, which speeds up build times by about 90 seconds and > > reduces the size of containers currently being built for our > > Jenkins > > CI workflow. It also means CouchDB devs don't have to install > > 0.5-1.5GB worth of toolset. > > > > I've captured this in JIRA as > > https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-3329 and have PRs > > ready > > to fire off if people agree. > > > > Your thoughts? > > > > -Joan >
