Re: Bug#793067: Bug#792328: info: can no longer find the Emacs manual

[Karl Berry]

    Perhaps it's naive, but I feel like I might just want a dir like this so
    that I can find what I want and don't have to change global state and/or
    restart the viewer just to read different versions:

I agree.  You can have that now.  It does not need new features, so far
as I can see.  Just put the entries you want in the dir file.  When
compiling emacs24.5, use configure --infodir=/usr/share/info/emacs24.5,
etc.

* Emacs (emacs.info)::
* Emacs24.5 (emacs24.5/emacs.info)::
* Emacs24.1 (emacs24.1/emacs.info)::

And then your update-alternatives sets up the stuff like
ln -s emacs24.5/emacs.info /usr/share/info/emacs.info
so that cross-refs work.

If an individual user wants "info emacs" to do something
else, they can set INFOPATH.  That's why it exists.

    At least on Debian the normal method is update-alternatives, which can
    only be invoked as root, and changes the defaults globally.

If you're globally changing the meaning of the "emacs" binary, why
wouldn't you want "info emacs" to change with it?

Sorry to be such a curmudgeon.  It just seems to me Texinfo is not and
should not be a packaging system.

k