Re: [Bug-tar] tar auto detect compression

[Andreas Dilger]

On 2012-01-14, at 2:35, Sergey Poznyakoff <address@hidden> wrote:
> Mark Krenz <address@hidden> ha escrit:
> 
>>  Really?  In 25+ years they've never released a man page?
> 
> No, and there are no plans of doing so either. Tar is fully documented
> in texinfo format. The manual is included in the distribution. Apart
> from that, it is available online in various formats at
> http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual. Given all that, I see no reason
> in any additional man pages.

I think this is a pretty narrow view on the world. In all the years that I've 
been using *nix systems, I still don't really find the GNU info pages very 
useful compared to man pages because the user interface is completely 
non-intuitive.

Up and down arrows working? Does <enter> select the link under the cursor? 
Nope. Does the status bar at the bottom of the screen show how to get help on 
the keys?  Nope. Does '?' get help? Nope. 

If every distro is making the effort to develop and maintain man pages, this is 
a pretty clear indication that users find man pages useful. If this is being 
contributed to the tar project, it seems reasonable to accept the man page 
instead of forcing divergent and incomplete man pages to be maintained 
externally. 

Cheers, Andreas