Re: Using GNU's install-info in Debian instead of dpkg's install-info

[Karl Berry]

    According to Joey Hess (you do see the whole thread, right?) 

Apparently not.  I didn't see that mail, anyway.

    it isn't too time consuming.

I wouldn't expect resource consumption to be the problem.  The problem I
see is breaking a new install of package X because of something that has
happened with package Y or some administrator's action, possibly many
years ago.  Requiring this sort of perfect consistency of the past to
install a package in the present seems fundamentally wrong to me, and a
frustration for users and administrators, not a help.

If you want to require it for Debian, that's fine, of course, and it can
be an option or whatever in I-I.  I can imagine many people would like
it.  But, at least in the form I'm envisioning, I don't think it should
be the default for GNU.

    And it relects what Debian does for other things, like menus.

Sorry, I don't know what menus you're referring to.

    The highlighted part is the catch - you're keeping the broken parsing.

I don't understand.  An info file says to install itself in section XYZ.
So install-info installs it in section XYZ.  What's broken about that?
And what name can be used besides the one the info file says, anyway?

I'm sure you know all this, so now I feel completely lost.

    Isn't that need exactly what we're trying to eliminate?

As far as I can see, the way to eliminate manual fixes is to fix the
source Texinfo files in the first place (to use consistent section
names, formatting, etc.), which in fact I have spent a lot of effort on.
The situation is better than it used to be, although of course it's very
far from perfect.


Anyway, I really hope Debian I-I and GNU I-I can be merged in the ways
Norbert was originally proposing (are you even seeing this mail any
more, Norbert?), even if the whole world can't be fixed at the same
time.

Thanks,
karl