Re: Proposal for a change in documentation

[Paul Eggert]

> From: "John D. Coleman" <address@hidden>
> Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 22:49:31 -0400
> 
> Proposed format follows:

Thanks for your suggestion; I can see that you've given it some
thought.  My first reaction is that I think your suggestion will be
more well-thought-out if you actually implement it for one program,
"autoconf" say.

> Supported Platforms:
> # List of systems that this program will operate on.

For most GNU programs, this list is unknown.  They will run on any
platform that they run on.  There is no "support" in the usual
commercial sense.

> Files that will be automatically installed by `make':...
> Supporting files or libraries that are included with this program:...

You can compute this automatically yourself, by running this:

  ./configure --prefix=/tmp/prefix
  make install
  find /tmp/prefix -print
  (make distclean; rm -fr /tmp/prefix)

> # If you can not list them all, please include a note stating that fact.

(I predict that this will be the most common option taken.  :-)

> Files that the installer (that's you, the reader) must create to operate
> this program properly:

Most likely this will either be the trivial list "none", or "it depends".


> INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

This is the current INSTALL file, I assume.  It would be best to
submit any specific suggestions in this area to bug-autoconf, in the
form of a patch file to doc/autoconf.texi.  See
<http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/> for more.

Some of the other suggestions that you have seem more suitable
for automake, though.  <http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/>

Sorry if I seem a bit vague, but a considerable amount of work will be
needed to go from your suggestions to actual improvements to autoconf
and/or automake.