Comment 7 for bug 46480

On Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 07:57:13PM +0100, Michael Kerrisk wrote:
> >
> > The information is duplicated in several other man pages.
>
> How is that a problem?

Usually we maintain information in one place and provide pointers to it,
to lessen the maintenance cost in avoiding inconsistent and/or
contradictory copies.

> > Some even refer to environ(7) on the presumption that
> > BROWSER would be documented there.
>
> Which ones?

At a glance, sensible-browser and urlview. This is just on one system.

> On the distribution I just checked (not Debian), grepping the
> man pages produced exactly one other man page that mentions
> BROWSER.

apt-listchanges(1), bts(1), dhelp(1), dwww(1), fontforge(1), man(1),
mensis(1), querybts(1), sensible-browser(1), urlview(1), ...
And that doesn't even include the various non-English translations of
these man pages, which also must maintain copies of that information.

> Any apps that need BROWSER should of course be documenting
> its use in their own man pages -- they do not/should not
> be relying on environ(7) to be documenting specific
> environment variables.

environ(7) seems to be the conventional place for documenting specific
environment variables. I don't see why BROWSER is an exception.

If this is simply an excuse for not having time to add the appropriate
documentation, here is a patch. Thanks.

--
Ryan Underwood, <email address hidden>