Re: GNU Manuals in Info/HTML format via Guix?

[Suhail Singh <suhailsingh247@gmail.com>]

Jeremy Bryant <jb@jeremybryant.net> writes:

> The GNU Project's documentation format is Texinfo.  How about
> distributing some or many Texinfo manuals through Guix, is this
> something that is consistent with previous norms in Guix?

Guix has had SICP available via Info format since 2016:
<https://packages.guix.gnu.org/packages/sicp/20180718-3.bda03f7/>.  The
Info file is built directly from the Texinfo source by invoking
makeinfo:
<https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/packages/scheme.scm#n626>.

Packaging becomes even easier when the Texinfo source is available as an
ELPA package.  For comparison, I created a patch for the similar sicp
Emacs package (<https://github.com/webframp/sicp-info>):
<https://issues.guix.gnu.org/74906>.

The package definition is somewhat simpler since it obviates the manual
invocation of makeinfo.

> We discussed both a comprehensive solution for Info manuals, as well
> as specific cases such as RMS's C manual (c.info) which is not part of
> a software project.
>
> WDYT?

Given a standalone Texinfo source that we want to distribute as an Info
manual, creating a corresponding ELPA package repository is especially
effective.  It makes packaging into Guix easier.  Additionally, it makes
the generated Info manual available to users of Emacs who don't use Guix
(via package-vc-install etc).

-- 
Suhail