Re: Purpose of INLINE_INSERTCOPYING variable

[Patrice Dumas]

On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 11:46:57PM +0200, Hans-Bernhard Bröker wrote:
> Am 28.06.2017 um 22:54 schrieb Gavin Smith:
> >I would like to remove the code for the INLINE_INSERTCOPYING variable
> >in texi2any, as it doesn't seem to be used anywhere, and it seems to me
> >to be unnecessary.
> 
> Hmm... isn't that a rather big jump from the existing TODO item:

I most probably put that line in the TODO file, and though it is too
ancient for me to remember what it was about, a possibility is that this
was probably planned for other formats, not formats already in texinfo,
such that they wouldn't need to have an explicit implementation for
insertcopying, using INLINE_INSERTCOPYING would do the right thing
without any explicit code in converter.

> > Use INLINE_INSERTCOPYING as the default for some formats?

> So there's a considerable chance that some documents out there, or
> their build environments, rely on it, and if they do, it'll be

I do not think so.  It would probably be useful for people implementing
a new converter, or people doing heavy customization and wanting to have
the copying content as texinfo code, and thus using the macro.  Both of
those are very unlikely, as both imply people doing extensive
customization in perl.

> generating their _legally_crucial_ copyright notice, no less!
> Throwing it out without so much as a deprecation phase first feels
> wrong, even given the "Warning: " paragraph at the top of "info
> texinfo Generic Customization"