[gnu.org #1448598] [Re: [gnu-prog-discuss] Finding program executables]

[Therese Godefroy via RT]

On Fri Nov 15 05:04:51 2019, address@hidden wrote:
> On Wed Nov 13 21:06:59 2019, rms wrote:
> > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
> > 
> > > What makes things difficult is that webmasters don't have write
> > > access to the source repos, only to the web page repos. Since the
> > > texinfo sources of the 'maintain' and 'standards' manuals are in a
> > > source repo (/sources/gnustandards/), webmasters can't patch
> > > them. They have to ask members of the GNU Coding Standards group
> > >  to do it,
> > 
> > That is proper.  The standards group is responsible for changes in
> > the standards.
> 
> Some changes are requested by people outside this group:
> * RT #1359149 Change to GNU FTP upload instructions, requested by
> Andrew Engelbrecht.
> * Several requests to fix links.

*Latest patch Nov. 17* (gnustandards.diff.gz, attached)

1) maintain.texi
* Fix the link to fsfstatus.

2) standards.texi:
* Fix the link to the Bash manual (typo: s/Bash/bash/).
* Link to the FSF copies of the licenses instead of the originals.
This will cut down on the number of dead links, forward loops, etc.
reported by linc (another one yesterday).


> These patches usually correct wrong information. This is why we
> need to fix the manuals without delay. Either we have a _quick way_ to
> commit the "outside" patches to the source repo, or the manuals will
> be fixed before the sources are updated, with a risk of reversion next
> time the manuals are regenerated.
> 
> > All the webmasters are responsible for is to update the HTML files
> > from the Texinfo sources in gnustandards.
> 
> You probably mean that webmasters are responsible for regenerating the
> manuals? This used to be done by members of the standards group
> (Karl, Brandon, Mike). If the standards people want webmasters to do
> it from now on, I think the workflow needs to be made simpler, and
> coordination between the 2 groups improved. If on the other hand they
> want to keep doing it, they should commit outside patches in a timely
> manner (see above).
> 
> > > Some people don't even know the manuals are generated from
> > > texinfo files, and fix the HTML directly (leaving the other
> > > formats unfixed).
> 
> Looking more closely at CVS history, I found only one instance where
> the manual wasn't regenerated: a patch to maintain.html that was
> committed on Sep 14 17:31:31 2017.
> 
> > Are these people webmasters?
> 
> I don't think the person who did the commit was a webmaster.
> 
> > We should make sure they know the right
> > way to handle these files.  There are various ways we could do that.
> > What ways do people suggest we use?
> 
> Explaining the current workflow to someone who hasn't had time to
> explore the "gnu.org maze" looks almost impossible to me.
> 
> > > Or they use the texinfo archives in prep/maintain/ and
> > > prep/standards/ (as I did in September to fix the fsfstatus link),
> > > thinking that these are up-to-date.
> > 
> > How about if we delete those copies and replace them with pointers to
> > the real sources in the gnustandards repo?
> 
> Those copies are generated along with the other formats.

gnustandards.diff.gz
Description: application/gzip