From owner-freebsd-ports Thu Nov 9 7:17:20 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from nothing-going-on.demon.co.uk (unknown [212.136.216.175]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 74BB737B4CF; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 07:17:11 -0800 (PST) Received: (from nik@localhost) by nothing-going-on.demon.co.uk (8.11.0/8.11.0) id eA9BLmN00458; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 11:21:48 GMT (envelope-from nik) Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 11:21:48 +0000 From: Nik Clayton To: doc@freebsd.org Cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: An opportunity for FreeBSD Message-ID: <20001109112148.A425@canyon.nothing-going-on.org> References: <20000918212800.L567@parish> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20000918212800.L567@parish>; from marko@freebsd.org on Mon, Sep 18, 2000 at 09:28:00PM +0100 Organization: FreeBSD Project Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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 -- Internet connection, $19.95 a month. Computer, $799.95. Modem, $149.95. Telephone line, $24.95 a month. Software, free. USENET transmission, hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Thinking before posting, priceless. Somethings in life you can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard. -- Graham Reed, in the Scary Devil Monastery To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message