Re: [bug #41125] -make documentation is un-installable

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 7 Jan 2014, at 18:08, Markus Hitter <address@hidden> wrote:

> 
> For those on the -dev mailing list, we're talking about this bug:
> 
> https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?41125#comment0
> 
> 
> Am 07.01.2014 15:17, schrieb Richard Frith-Macdonald:
> 
>> I might guess that the issue you mean [...]
> 
> Instead of guessing I'd prefer you'd try with the shell snippets I
> provided. They clearly expose unintended results in at least 3 cases.

Again it seems we have some sort of communicatrions problem ... I'm just trying 
to get you to clarify things please.

To me the term 'shell snippet' means a script to be executed and I haven't seen 
you provide that.

So, again I'm guessing a bit ... the only think I can think  of three of, were 
three examples of trying to install documentation wikthout having first 
installed gnustep-make.  But if that's what you are referring to, why are you 
asking me to 'try' them (particularly when I've already explained a few times 
that installing gnustep-make is a prerequisite for everything else, and 
build/install without gnustgep-make is not expected/intended to work)?
Perhaps you missed reading one or two of my emails (or perhaps I missed one of 
yours)?

>> Perhaps I might guess that you mean, as Sebastian suggested, that you
>> want documentation to be built and installed along with gnustep-make
>> ... if so, that's not a (reasonable IMO) change request ... but since

Oops, sorry ... I see a mistake ... that was meant to be 'thats' a (not 
unreasonable IMO) change request'.  Hopefully the context of me already having 
said I support the idea means you read as intended rather than as written)

>> what you are asking for is a change to overall policy rather than a
>> specific package, probably the mailing list makes more sense.
> 
> Weird policy which prohibits to install documentation on its own.

No, the policy I was referring to was the one I mentioned earlier: that the 
documentation for the core packages is not built/installed by default as part 
of the packages.

> This
> prohibits not only packaging, but also cross-compilation, because in
> both cases is install root != system root.

I don't follow/understand the above.
Specifically, I don't know why building/installing documentation separately 
from the frameworks would prevent packaging, and I don't see how anythng you do 
with documentation could do anything with cross-compilation.  Guiess I'm 
missing something.

> That said, what you committed earlier today into README.packaging
> doesn't work. It isn't sufficient to package gnustep-make, it also has
> to be installed.

Yes, you build/install gnustep-make before anything else.  That's documented in 
lots of places.  Perhaps too many?

> Setting aside debian-type packaging doesn't build by
> binary package, but by source package, which makes it impossible to
> install a package not yet built,

I'm afraid I don't understand that sentence either ... however, I *am* getting 
the idea you want to do packaging (specifically for debian?) here ... something 
that wasn't initially clear.
Also, for some reason you don't want to build/install gnustep-make, but it's 
not at all clear why?

> Documentation/GNUmakefile line 37ff
> attempts to go such a route without packaging, but it's buggy and/or
> incomplete. But I mentioned the latter already.

I don't know what 37ff means so again I'm guessing a bit;  I think you are 
referring to the capability to build a local/temporary copy of the 
documentation so that you can look at the documentation to start with.  This is 
done by configuring (with default values) and installing gnustep-make in a 
temporary location, and then using that to build/install the local/temporary 
documentation.  As far as I know it works properly for its intended purpose 
(lets you view the documentation before you decide how you want to configure 
gnustep-make).  It can't install the documentation because, at this point you 
haven't configured/installed gnustep-make, so the eventual installation 
location is unknown.  Maybe you find it  buggy because you don't know the local 
layout for the files?  In which case, perhaps you could improve that by 
defining a different filesystem layout to be used by the temporary installation 
of gnustep-make, and having the makefile print out the paths to the 
documentation when it finished building for instance.

> I have another ~15 bugs similar to this one stacked.

Well, I'm still trying to establish how to help you on this one ... I think it 
needs a clear statement of an immediate problem so that people can suggest 
solutions.
I've seen two documentation related bug reports from you recently:  one (41026) 
is hopefully fixed in trunk.
The other (41125) was trying to install documentation the wrong way.  Clearly 
you are not satisfied with being told the 'right' way to do it.  So please 
explain what the problem is with installing things the normal/documented way.  
How is the standard installation process getting in the way of what you are 
trying to do?
You can have multiple copies of gnustep-make installed, with different 
filesystem layouts etc, so it really ought to be possible to create any sort of 
combination of packages you like.

For 15 others, if they are like this one, then they would make sense as queries 
on the mailing list, if they are like 41026 then simple bug reports are 
appropriate (I realise it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between the 
two though).