On 01/07/2013 05:35 PM, Michael Mol wrote: > On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 8:54 PM, Zac Medico <zmed...@gentoo.org> wrote: >> On 01/06/2013 05:36 PM, Michael Mol wrote: >>> >>> On Jan 6, 2013 8:32 PM, "Zac Medico" <zmed...@gentoo.org >>> <mailto:zmed...@gentoo.org>> wrote: >>>> >>>> On 01/06/2013 01:04 AM, Ralph Sennhauser wrote: >>>>> On Fri, 4 Jan 2013 23:34:59 -0600 >>>>> Donnie Berkholz <dberkh...@gentoo.org <mailto:dberkh...@gentoo.org>> >>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On 10:26 Sat 22 Dec , Pacho Ramos wrote: >>>>>>> Hello >>>>>>> >>>>>>> After seeing: >>>>>>> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440214 >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Looking to a lot of its blockers shows that we are using "elog" >>>>>>> messages for informing people about configuration (like pointing >>>>>>> people to external links to get proper way of configuring things, >>>>>>> tell them to add to some system groups...). I thought that maybe >>>>>>> this kind of information could be simply included in a canonical >>>>>>> file under /usr/share/doc/ package dir called, for example, >>>>>>> CONFIGURATION or SETUP. We would them point people (now with a news >>>>>>> item, for the long term provably a note to handbook to newcomers >>>>>>> would be nice) to that file to configure their setups. The main >>>>>>> advantages I see: >>>>>>> - We will flood less summary.log ;) >>>>>>> - The information to configure the package is always present while >>>>>>> package is installed, now, if we remove merge produced logs, people >>>>>>> will need to reemerge the package or read directly the ebuild >>>>>>> >>>>>>> What do you think? >>>>>> >>>>>> Bikeshedding ... would go with README.gentoo, because people are >>>>>> already used to looking for README files. Every time we can eliminate >>>>>> Gentoo-specific weirdness, we should. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> See the documentation for README.Debian[1], most importantly the >>>>> example. ;) >>>>> >>>>> I'd say we should handle it the same as Debian does. >>>> >>>> README.gentoo sounds good to me. >>>> >>>>> What could we possibly gain from doing it differently? >>>> >>>> Does Debian have a postinst message, like the proposed eclass would >>>> generate? Do you agree that a postinst message is desirable feature? >>>> >>>>> [1] http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/dother.en.html#readme >>>>> >>>> -- >>>> Thanks, >>>> Zac >>>> >>> >>> If we had README.gentoo, I'd love it if Portage alerted me as those >>> files changed. >> >> Even if it's just whitespace or formatting changes? Maybe it's better to >> let the ebuild do version comparisons and decide whether to generate a >> message based on that. > > I see two solutions to that: > > 1) Define a format for the file, so that substantive difference can be > programmatically discerned from non-substantive differences. I don't > have a good proposal for a particular format.
A version header that the package manager can parse, should do the trick. > 2) Make it so that an author of a README.gentoo file is well aware > that any change he makes will potentially annoy all his users if the > change isn't substantive. Frequent trivial modification should probably be avoided. OTOH, the maintainer should not be ashamed of making occasion small modifications, in order to improve the content quality. > Frankly, (2) seems entirely reasonable. And at the same time, being > able to look at version history for README.gentoo files would be > extraordinarily enlightening. > > -- > :wq > -- Thanks, Zac
