Re: Configure.help i18n system

[Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl]

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> I wonder if the Configure.help text should not possibly be even _more_
> distributed than just splitting it up into different files. It might very
> well be acceptable to actually distribute it over the net (and have just
> a mapping of config options into www-addresses or something).

I think this is a bad idea.

(i) The kernel has high visibility, and work on the kernel
[even if only on the Documentation subdirectory] has high "prestige".
As a consequence, parts of the kernel tree are kept much better
up-to-date than documentation found elsewhere.

(I have been trying for years to find people willing to do something
to the very outdated ioctl_list.2 or proc.5 or bootparam.7.)

When distributed, very quickly Configure.help would be outdated,
and of very uneven format and quality.

(ii) So far, building a kernel involved getting a single tarball.
If the help for over a thousand configuration options is found
a hundred different places on the net, of which five are currently
unreachable, things get really cumbersome.

The current system is not so bad.

Andries