Why not enabling APT links in the Documentation??? (bis)

[Dougie Richardson]

2009/4/7 Andrew Sayers <andrew-bugs.launchpad.net at pileofstuff.org>:
> Matthew and Dougie,
>
> I don't quite follow your argument - are you opposed to people that want
> to add pkgb.net links to pages, or just opposed to a change in policy
> towards requiring pkgb links?

I don't want to use packagebase at all. We have a ticket open to
enable apt-url, which was discussed by the team at quite some length.
I don't see the urgency to make the change and think it is wasted
effort when it needs to be changed again.

I also don't like relying on third party sites, for several reasons
and with the best will in the world from Jason if his server starts
getting hammered by incoming from our servers then he's the one who
has a problem, which seems very unfair to him.

> I quite understand that changing policy twice in a short period could
> alienate documenters, but I don't see what harm it does if people are
> volunteering to improve the documentation, whatever the percentage
> improvement.

You forget that we're volunteers too and the ones who have to clean it
up later! Thats why this team works the way it does where everything
is discussed before we implement it, if something offers a small
benefit for a lot of work then it is not viable.

> If there's still some way of accessing the old search system, it would
> be trivial to search for every instance of "http://pkgb.net/", and
> replace it with "apt:".  Compare that with the amount of work involved
> in searching for every way of saying "install package X" in the English
> language :)

I don't really see how this is relevant because the second step you
mention needs to be taken to implement packagebase. If this step needs
to be taken first, has been applied for and the team has approved it
(which we did) then it makes more sense to use apt-url from the start.

Regards,

Dougie Richardson
http://www.lynxworks.eu/
dougierichardson at ubuntu.com