Hi all, Blair pointed me to the fact that "source" packages are not supposed to contain docs, according to our specs. I object that recommendation. In my opinion, "source" packages should contain everything outside the bin directory, and "binary" packages should contain everything outside the source directory.
My reason for this recommendation is that end users should have all documentation and that all documen- tation in fact IS part of the source code. When we work on updating a program, it has to be sufficient to download ONLY the source package to create a new version of the full binary package. One might say that this wastes space in situations where you put both source and binary package zips in one directory. Well. Shit happens. Or if that is not acceptable, one could put "MINIMAL SOURCE" zip packages in that directory, containing ONLY the source directory contents. Along with a readme which tells that the source zips in that directory can only be used in combination with the binary zips. Source packages which are available via http should contain the full docs. This avoids two problems: - people would otherwise have to download the old exe even if they only wanted the docs, for example for creating derived versions of the sources - programmers would otherwise easily forget to update the docs or, even worse, the NLS files when they modify the source code An alternative solution for all the hassles might be to have the docs in a third zip. Then you would have to download 2 of 3 zips for development and 2 of 3 zips for using the program. And all 3 zips would have minimal size. If anybody cares for size of source packages. Still I would really prefer to have all docs in the source zips! After all, people usually download only the sources of SELECTED packages. And the open source idea tells me that the sources are the origins of the world, so it should not be necessary to download the binary package to understand the sources. Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
