Re: makeinfo 4.7

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org,  karl@freefriends.org
>> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
>> Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 00:30:01 +0200
>> 
>> > I thought the GNU project was about being able to modify the manual,
>> > not only use whatever is shipped with the tarballs.
>> 
>> If you are modifying the manual, you can be expected to be using
>> development tools that are not from the stone age.
>
> If it is really necessary to ask them to upgrade, I agree.  But this
> is not our case.  Are you saying we should ask people to upgrade for
> no good reason at all?
>
>> That is nothing an inexperienced user would do.
>
> There's nothing in "make info" that requires any particular
> experience, IMO.

"make info" will not do anything in a released tarball unless you
touched the manual sources.

>> > On top of that, a large number of users who aren't developers are
>> > using the CVS code, where you must have Texinfo to produce the
>> > manual.
>> 
>> Again, this is nothing an inexperienced user would do.
>
> I think you should check your facts.  It is no longer true that only
> hackers use the CVS code.

Inexperienced users use CVS code somebody else compiled.  Basically
all GNU/Linux distributions provide some emacs-snapshot package, and
there are several precompiled offers for MacOSX and Windows.

I don't see somebody juggling with CVS and compiling himself and so on
use a makeinfo from several years ago and being unable to upgrade.

It just does not make sense.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum