Subject: Re: bug#46236: 26.1; explicit the info files installation

From: Tomas Nordin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2021 15:25:50 +0100

marmot-te <[email-masked]> writes:

> Hello,
>
> It is a common issue for many new emacs users to figure out how to 
> get the info files for emacs, for its packages, and eventually for 
> others systems packages. Somes probably never figures it out.
>
> It is indeed sad since we all need theses nices info files.
>
> I suggest to add a notice in the info/dir file itself (or at least 
> an info link easy to notice, be it to the FAQ or not) that 
> explicit that you probably need to install system-wise :
> - extra documentations packages such as bash-doc, 
>   emacs-common-non-dfsg (non-free repository for debian). 
> - ensure texinfo is installed in order to compile documentation 
>   when new emacs packages are installed.

Ever since I discovered this issue I have been curious if this (somewhat
tragicomic) split in interpretation of what is free documentation will
be resolved some day. 

It has the effect that GFDL documentation will have to be installed from
Debian non-free archives. The ease of such installations seem to be the
sole reason Debian is not an endorsed Gnu/Linux distro by the FSF.

--
Tomas