pdf toolchain notes & suggestions

[Dave Pawson]

On Thu, 2004-09-30 at 06:08, Karsten Wade wrote:

> > I guess I'd consider that an extremist view. Especially for a tool to
> > produce documentation, a third order product. How far back does this
> > view go?
> 
> So ... should we abandon all this stuff and use Framemaker + SGML?
More extremism Karsten?


> 
> Forget the idealism for a second.  The technical reason is simple.
> 
> If I write a program, compile it, and six months later get a bug report,
> how do I know if the bug is in my program or the compiler?  I don't
> know, and I can't know, because I can't look at the source to figure it
> out.
Practically speaking, would you be able to resolve compiler bugs?
I know I wouldn't.


> It is impossible to debug something happening in a toolchain if there is
> a link in the chain that is closed source.
  To which I'd posit the notion of limited sphere of influence.
I.e. I'm unlikely to use fop in such a way that I'd break the compiler.



> The *entirety* of Fedora _must_be_ free.

If that's your position I've no problem with that.
I'll guess that Tammy won't come in on this debate, so 
I'll ask how/if/whether that position is supported by others 
in this group?
I personally don't think its reasonable for documentation.


>   The point of Fedora
> documentation is _not_ to build a toolchain that will run on Solaris,
> HP-UX, AIX, Windows, or OSX.  It is to build a toolchain that runs under
> Fedora.  To do that, the packages should be at least part of the Core
> packages, and in either case (Core or Extras) they _must_ be 100% free.
> 
> It's not like I made up these rules, although I do approve of them with
> all my heart.

OK lets blame someone else.
  My usual question now follows. Who?

Can you point to a document/person/project manager who has this
documented somewhere?


-- 
Regards DaveP.
XSLT&Docbook  FAQ
http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl