Re: Not delivering {bugs,gnats,faq}.html in releases

["Joseph S. Myers" <jsm28 at cam dot ac dot uk>]

On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Wolfgang Bangerth wrote:

> gnats.html if dysfunctional anyway, so there shouldn't be any opposition if I 
> delete it and references to it soonish. The question is: do we want to put 

Following, of course, the previous context of the discussion
<http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2003-06/msg01632.html> on how to do this, which
you forgot to mention in your message.  I.e., include corresponding
documentation extracted from Bugzilla.

> Regarding bugs/faq.html: The only advertised method for bug submission is 

faq.html is not included as bug reporting documentation - it is included
as the FAQ - and it is not "bugs/faq.html".  The files included are
explicitly for the convenience of offline use, in that they refer to where
the current version may be found, if online.

(It is possible that everyone will now have a web browser to view the
files, albeit possibly offline, and the plain text versions of the files
may therefore no longer be needed, only the HTML versions.)

> using a web interface. If you use that anyway, then we don't need to have a 

bugs.html describes both methods (and then the deprecated third method of
mailing to gcc-bugs).

> copy of these files. Furthermore, the ones on the web page are always 
> up-to-date -- something I think might be valuable when we realize that lots 

And that is why there start by giving their current location - so that
online users can check the current version.

> of users have problems adapting their code to the new C++ parser and we 
> figure out what the frequently asked questions are. Besides that, most people 
> most likely share my ignorance where these files actually reside on my 
> harddisk...

I think we expect distributors to put the miscellaneous documentation
files somewhere appropriate.  But if Autoconf 2.5x provides an appropriate
option (--docdir or similar) for configuring a directory for miscellaneous
documentation (e.g. /usr/share/doc/gcc) then we could consider installing
such documentation (and potentially HTML and other versions of manuals if
requested, etc.) there.

(Now, the files included in the distribution should be under a free
licence - i.e., modifiable rather than verbatim only - as should most of
the website; otherwise e.g. Debian will be removing this documentation,
release notes, ..., from distributions.  Would it be possible to make the
licensing for GCC webpages Free by default?)

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
jsm28@cam.ac.uk