Re: [bug-gnulib] proposal for fdl module

[Bruno Haible]

Eric Blake wrote:
> In the m4 project, I wanted to update the documentation to include the FDL in 
> an appendix.  gnulib contains doc/fdl.texi, but did not have any easy way to 
> import it over to m4.  Would this patch be acceptable to allow documentation 
> to 
> be pulled in as separate modules? It would also be beneficial to the getdate  
> module, which references doc/getdate.texi, by adding handling for a doc 
> directory.


If this was doc targeted to end-users, this might make sense. But so far
only getdate.texi is an end-user doc. All other doc in gnulib is targeted
at programmers, and should therefore not be incorporated in the package
that uses gnulib.

> 2006-07-10  Eric Blake  <address@hidden>
> 
>       * gnulib-tool: Avoid space-tab.

What's the point of this change? Also, please present unrelated patches
in different mails, and commit them in different cvs commits. Otherwise
it gets hard to track the history in CVS.

>       (--doc-base): Add new option, for where .texi files should live.

Before doing this, I think we should clarify the distinction between
end-user and gnulib-user doc. I'm adding this to the README.

*** README      4 Jan 2006 19:18:29 -0000       1.15
--- README      11 Jul 2006 11:55:11 -0000
***************
*** 59,64 ****
--- 59,70 ----
  * If the module needs configure-time checks, write an autoconf
    macro for it in m4/<module>.m4. See m4/README for details.
  * Write a module description modules/<module>, based on modules/TEMPLATE.
+ * If the module contributes a section to the end-user documentation,
+   put this documentation in doc/<module>.texi and add it to the "Files"
+   section of modules/<module>.  Most modules don't do this; they have only
+   documentation for the programmer (= gnulib user).  Such documentation
+   usually goes into the lib/ source files.  It may also go into doc/;
+   but don't add it to the module description in this case.
  * Add the module to the list in MODULES.html.sh.
  
  You can test that a module builds correctly with:


Also, in the patch, I would mention --doc-base before --tests-base.
(tests-base is used only when --with-tests is specified, whereas doc-base
is used always.)

>       * modules/fdl: New module, for grabbing fdl.texi.

Automake is distributing COPYING and texinfo.tex. Why would you have
fdl.texi distributed by gnulib-tool, not by automake? I would not like
to see conflicts arise between automake and gnulib-tool.

Bruno