NetBSD Problem Report #33035

From www@netbsd.org  Thu Mar  9 03:38:46 2006
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Date: Thu,  9 Mar 2006 03:38:45 +0000 (UTC)
From: kernelpanicked@bsdnut.com
Reply-To: kernelpanicked@bsdnut.com
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Subject: Lack of documentation
X-Send-Pr-Version: www-1.0

>Number:         33035
>Category:       standards
>Synopsis:       Lack of documentation
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    standards-manager
>State:          closed
>Class:          doc-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Thu Mar 09 03:40:00 +0000 2006
>Closed-Date:    Fri Mar 10 08:35:12 +0000 2006
>Last-Modified:  Thu Mar 16 16:40:01 +0000 2006
>Originator:     James Boothe
>Release:        NetBSD 3.0
>Organization:
>Environment:
>Description:
I apologize if this has already been brought up previously. I did make an attempt to search the mailing list archives before filling out the problem report. During a recent discussion with some other BSD users the discussion of whether a text mode browser is needed in the base system came up. Most everyone agrees this would be a good thing as most (all?) of NetBSD's docs are only Web accessable. Initially I thought this was a good idea because the only documentation on my machine was in /usr/share/doc and believe it or not, was in HTML form, even though a text mode browser doesn't currently ship with NetBSD. Then I looked further and noticed that only about four programs are even documented in that directory. Can we get the full set of NetBSD docs into the base system? Whether in plain text or HTML accompanied by lynx, every OS should come with the proper documentation in my opinion. Is there a possibility of this in the future? I would be happy to volunteer some of my time and ability to help accomplish this.
>How-To-Repeat:
Install NetBSD
>Fix:
Copy the documentation to the base install

>Release-Note:

>Audit-Trail:
From: Martin Husemann <martin@duskware.de>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: standards/33035: Lack of documentation
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 09:59:09 +0100

 On Thu, Mar 09, 2006 at 03:40:00AM +0000, kernelpanicked@bsdnut.com wrote:

 > [..] this would be a good thing as most (all?) of NetBSD's docs
 > are only Web accessable.

 This is not true. All programs are documented in their man pages.
 Some bigger, externally maintained programs have additional documentation
 in html format (this is what you found).

 If you discover some program in the base installation that man(1) does not
 know about, please file a PR.

 Martin

From: Brian Asemi <asemisldkfj@gmail.com>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: standards/33035: Lack of documentation
Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 21:09:13 -0500

 I would definitely like to see the entire NetBSD Guide in the base 
 system.  This would greatly benefit people without internet connections 
 or people who have no reason to install a web browser solely for the 
 purpose of accessing the Guide.  The Guide is a great piece of 
 documentation, IMHO, and making it more available by putting it in 
 /usr/share/doc in a readable format doesn't have any disadvantages that 
 I can see.

 Making the docs that are already available in /usr/share/doc available 
 in formats that are readable at the command line without installing 
 additional software would be greatly helpful too.  Shipping docs with 
 the base system that are unreadable with the base system makes little 
 sense.  The only other solution to this that I see would be shipping a 
 text browser with the base system, but I doubt anyone wants to do that :P.

 I'd like to hear some others opinions on this.

 My two cents,
 Brian

From: "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed@reedmedia.net>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: Brian Asemi <asemisldkfj@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: standards/33035: Lack of documentation
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 18:19:44 -0800 (PST)

 On Fri, 10 Mar 2006, Brian Asemi wrote:
 >  I'd like to hear some others opinions on this.

 The guide could be included with NetBSD. Seems good to me.

 I think this should be discussed on netbsd-docs@ mailing list on ideas on 
 how to generate a clean text version and maybe a ROFF version of the 
 guide. We can include the HTML also, but text would be required too.

 I think this bugs is miscategorized. Let's continue discussion on 
 netbsd-docs ...

  Jeremy C. Reed

 echo 'I7@87944:;6<754372=9=?48812=7043:>' | tr '0-@' 'wutrofn mlkige.ca'

State-Changed-From-To: open->closed
State-Changed-By: martin@netbsd.org
State-Changed-When: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:35:12 +0000
State-Changed-Why:
This is no standards conformance problem.
The suggestion is now beeing discusses on netbsd-docs.


From: Alan Barrett <apb@cequrux.com>
To: netbsd-bugs@NetBSD.org, gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: standards/33035: Lack of documentation
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:37:19 +0200

 If anybody thinks that <http://netbsd.org/Documentation/> is "the
 documentation for NetBSD", then there's a problem with the web site.
 Somehow, people should to be made aware that the man pages are *the*
 documentation, and the web site is just extra.

 --apb (Alan Barrett)

>Unformatted:

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