Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 11:21:48 +0000 From: Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org> To: doc@freebsd.org Cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: An opportunity for FreeBSD Message-ID: <20001109112148.A425@canyon.nothing-going-on.org> In-Reply-To: <20000918212800.L567@parish>; from marko@freebsd.org on Mon, Sep 18, 2000 at 09:28:00PM %2B0100 References: <20000918212800.L567@parish>
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Mark,
Long quote retained for context.
On Mon, Sep 18, 2000 at 09:28:00PM +0100, Mark Ovens wrote:
> Some time ago Andrew Boothman produced a couple of perl scripts to
> collate all the documentation for ports/packages installed on a
> machine and produce an HTML index file of it. It was suggested that
> this could be extended to become part of the ports/packages mechanism
> so that the index was automatically updated whenever a port/package
> was installed or uninstalled. This got a rather cool reception from
> the ports people (after all, no-one gets excited about having even
> more work to do :)).
>
> I recently picked up this project, partly because I think it's a good
> idea, and partly because it provides a good vehicle for me to use to
> learn perl(1).
>
> Nik Clayton told me about a similar project that was starting up:
>
> "There's another angle I think that's worth investigating. At the
> O'Reilly docs summit a couple of months back, representatives from
> the GNOME, KDE, and Linux documentation projects were all looking
> at the similar problem of getting apps to register their
> documentation, and also to try and provide an interface over and
> above simple HTML."
>
> I fired off an e-mail to a couple of contacts Nik gave me, one of the
> replies I got is included at the end of this mail. As you can see the
> project is only just getting started and as yet no code has been
> produced. Currently the webpage mentioned in the e-mail has been taken
> down as they discovered that the name "Dewey" (from the Dewey-decimel
> system used for cataloguing by libraries) was trade-marked. The
> project is looking for a new name.
>
> I believe that it would be a Good Thing (TM) for FreeBSD to join this
> project for several reasons:
>
> 1. We really should have a mechanism for indexing the docs
> installed by the ports/packages.
>
> 2. By adopting Dewey (or whatever it becomes known as) rather
> than developing our own system we will reduce the work involved
> in implementation and maintenance.
>
> 3. It will help raise the visibility of FreeBSD in a predominately
> Linux environment.
>
> If we get involved now, at the outset, we will have a say in the
> design and development of the system (i.e. prevent it becoming overly
> Linux-specific) and get FreeBSD-specifics in the base source code. As
> you might expect, this is going to be GPL'd (down Brett, down boy ;))
> but I doubt that we will change that, however it would become an Open
> Source project, rather than a Linux project (that FreeBSD may possibly
> adopt in the future).
>
> As to the additional work that this will make for port maintainers if
> Dewey is adopted will be considerably less than using our own system.
> For larger ports whose projects support Dewey, e.g. KDE, GNOME, etc.,
> there should be no work at all as the meta-data will be in the source
> tar-balls and for ports without the meta-data included we should be
> able to automate its generation (although some hand tweaking may be
> necessary).
>
> Furthermore, this extra work is likely to be a one-off occurrence
> since document files are rarely added/removed/renamed, only the
> content is changed.
>
> The only other areas where work will be needed is for bsd.port.mk(?)
> to be modified to call Dewey as part of the install target (I expect
> that Dewey will be able to determine if the port has any docs to
> register). pkg_add(1) will also need modifying to do the same thing
> when installing packages and pkg_delete(1) to call Dewey to
> de-register the docs when a port/package is uninstalled.
>
> I have subscribed to the mailing list (which is rather quiet at the
> moment, but should liven up once code is available) and would like to
> be able to announce that FreeBSD is "officially" supporting the
> project (which means a committment to adopting Dewey for the
> ports/packages when it reaches production quality). I am willing to
> act as co-ordinator for this and will attempt to do most of the work.
>
> I also intend to lobby the {Net,Open}BSD docs people to support Dewey.
> If all three projects get involved it will, IMHO, give *BSD a big
> presence (and influence) in a Linux project.
Any news on this?
N
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