[Gs-code-review] remove generated text versions of doc files from cvs

[L. Peter Deutsch]

> We've been maintaining plain-text versions of the files Readme.htm and
> Public.htm (the AFPL) in cvs; the toolbin/pre script silently updates them
> from the html version as part of the 'update' step performed before each
> release. Keeping generated files in cvs is generally poor policy as it can
> lead to confusion and version skew.

I agree.

> Therefore I propose we remove them and make the creation of plain-text
> documentation an explicit part of the release process.

That seems fine to me.

> The only drawback I can see here is that someone making a source package
> for a platform that doesn't have lynx (which performs the conversion) must
> work from the unix tarball. I'm not sure that isn't a good way anyway, as
> it ensures source consistency.

I don't like this at all.  IMO, the release process must be designed so that
it can be executed on any platform on which it is reasonable to do
development, so I don't consider "work from the unix tarball" an acceptable
thing to tell developers on non-Unix platforms.

As you may recall, the script that made the plain-text files formerly
invoked Netscape passing it the "save as text" command.  This worked on any
platform that had Netscape.  I'm not recommending going back to that
approach (at least on platforms that have lynx), but I don't think this
proposed change should be made until you've found a way to carry out this
conversion on Windows and Mac platforms, and have documented it in
Release.htm.

-- 

L. Peter Deutsch     |    Aladdin Enterprises   |  203 Santa Margarita Ave.
ghost at aladdin.com    |  http://www.aladdin.com  |  Menlo Park, CA 94025

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