207 lines
3.3 KiB
HTML
207 lines
3.3 KiB
HTML
<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>Should I distribute source
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and/or already formatted documentation?</TITLE
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TITLE="What preprocessors may I
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use?"
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conventions?"
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><H1
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CLASS="SECT1"
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><A
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NAME="Q7"
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></A
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>7. Should I distribute source
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and/or already formatted documentation?</H1
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><P
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>Let me give the pros (+) and cons (-) of a few selected
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possibilities:</P
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><P
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></P
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><OL
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TYPE="1"
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><LI
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><P
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>Source only:+ smaller distribution package.- inaccessible on
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systems without <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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>.</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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>Uncompressed formatted only:+ accessible even on systems
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without <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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>.- the user can't generate a
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dvi or postscript file.- waste of disk space on systems that also
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handle compressed pages.</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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>Compressed formatted only:+ accessible even on systems
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without <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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>.- the user can't generate a
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dvi or postscript file.- which compression format would you use?
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.Z? .z? .gz? All of them?</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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>Source and uncompressed formatted:+ accessible even on
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systems without <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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>.- larger distribution
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package- some systems may expect compressed formatted man pages.-
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redundant information on systems equipped with
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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>.</P
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></LI
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></OL
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><P
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>IMHO it is best to distribute source only. The argument that
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it's inaccessible on systems without <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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>
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does not matter. The 500+ man pages of the Linux Documentation
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Project are source only. The man pages of XFree86 are source only.
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The man pages from the FSF are source only. In fact, I have rarely
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seen software distributed with formatted man pages. If any sysadmin
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is really concerned about having man pages accessible then he also
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has <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>groff</TT
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> installed.</P
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></DIV
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="q6.html"
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ACCESSKEY="P"
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>Prev</A
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VALIGN="top"
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>Home</A
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HREF="q8.html"
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>Next</A
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></TD
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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>What preprocessors may I
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use?</TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
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> </TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
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VALIGN="top"
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>What are the font
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conventions?</TD
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></TR
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></TABLE
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></DIV
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></BODY
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> |