Re: [ELPA] New package c-intro-and-ref -- was Re: Proposal: Include C Manual from RMS in Emacs git, and/or release

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> Are we providing packages that include only Info manuals, which
>> document stuff that is not specific to Emacs?  Because I don't see how
>> it would be a good idea to have this as an ELPA package.

There is a precedent in the form of the [Ada reference
manual](http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/ada-ref-man.html).
FWIW, I'm not completely comfortable with this precedent.
Sadly Info is rarely used outside of Emacs FAICT, so there is a clear
tendency to consider Info manual as "manuals for use within Emacs".

> It would also make sense to make the Emacs manuals available for easy
> download, as distributions like Debian do not include these by default.
> Whether we distribute these by piggy-backing on package.el or have a
> separate installer that could be distributed on ELPA is a different
> matter, but it would be useful to have an index of already existing
> manuals that would be interesting regardless of their relation to Emacs.

A dedicated ELisp package that can download manuals and install them in
Info format (which may require converting from another format) would be
nice (or more generally in any format that Emacs can use, which may also
include HTML, nowadays, tho we still need extra work to make HTML
manuals as well integrated as Info manuals).


        Stefan