From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Giorgos Keramidas Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Building 22.1, on Ubuntu Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:38:20 +0300 Organization: SunSITE.dk - Supporting Open source Message-ID: <873axnfzvn.fsf@kobe.laptop> References: <85ejh9xz66.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <711a73df0709080354p31c2c381oe53c1426e89d2db8@mail.gmail.com> <87bqccbwjs.fsf@kobe.laptop> <711a73df0709090247u35543f3cmee790d644c36beb6@mail.gmail.com> <85sl5nq46n.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1189370635 3958 80.91.229.12 (9 Sep 2007 20:43:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2007 20:43:55 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 10 06:43:41 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IUa8z-0000CT-2f for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 10 Sep 2007 05:41:01 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IUSec-0000Ca-Kf for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 09 Sep 2007 15:41:10 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!goblin1!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!news.net.uni-c.dk!dotsrc.org!filter.dotsrc.org!news.dotsrc.org!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1.50 (berkeley-unix) Cancel-Lock: sha1:vhF2I3fSL0bq8bQ9ipn099XwXMU= Original-Lines: 52 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.186.70.206 Original-X-Trace: news.sunsite.dk DXC=4R>m2MFo]C88NX=BCM0\c1YSB=nbEKnk; 4mi>jDOWoH7L^Mj7X7f^UIZ@YZ9Wg:WfI9XG2; bGSQX>a70[4 Original-X-Complaints-To: staff@sunsite.dk Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:151899 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:47411 Archived-At: On Sun, 09 Sep 2007 16:55:12 +0200, David Kastrup wrote: >Giorgos Keramidas writes: >>On 2007-09-09 10:47, Dave Pawson wrote: >>> I'll collect my findings on my site when I've finished. >> >> Nice. IMHO, that's exactly the free software spirit that we should >> foster in communities like the Emacs' users community. > > I don't agree: as a package maintainer, it is _one_ major source of > irritation if people who can't be bothered to read the installation > instructions then put up a web site with their personal take on how > things should work. 10 years later, still people use those > instructions to paint themselves into a corner and complain on mailing > lists and newsgroups how broken things are. > > If a user figures out something that is missing in the documentation, > he should contribute to the _upstream_ documentation instead of > creating _another_ incomplete inaccurate experience report that will > work, if you are lucky, on one particular platform with one particular > version if at all, possibly breaking a number of things in the process > that the report creator was not aware of. > > _If_ there is something wrong with the upstream documentation, helping > to fix it is _much_ more important and helpful than putting up another > thing in competition. Scattering partial information of inscrutable > quality all around the web helps nobody. Right. I don't disagree with this at all. Which is just below the text to which you replied I wrote: % Please note that the Emacs source tree contains already a lot of % useful documentation of this sort. The file `etc/MACHINES' lists % various configure script options, environment setup and other useful % bits that building Emacs may require. % % I don't see Ubuntu GNU/Linux mentioned in the current CVS tree of % Emacs, so if you are willing to collect some of the experience you % have gained so far in a short, concise summary -- something like a % paragraph or two -- it may be a very useful addition to the mini % guides of that file :-) I happen to severely dislike random web sites with out of date "howto" information, googled semi-randomly by 15-year old teenagers, who then like complaining that "Linux is hard". I understand the drive behind trying to "document" things this way, but what you described (and what I had suggested in the snipped text re-quoted above is a much better way of improving Emacs). So we are in perfect agreement here :-) - Giorgos