From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4D0C52DB79F for ; Sat, 9 May 2026 19:42:26 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1778355746; cv=none; b=S42bsDK4aPkZNki3Pe3g1H1B7zyVE102JBoAWb1t109cY8uCB3iyeQfL6bawcg6W8T3kELe4nw/3jOBr0R0opumLjjJMNa6e0TKfOTpmBeZRuR9Hqd8bum+vp4GkUK9/KjrHOWdqtTCDb+PRL+jNRdcO4q3ulzSQDDg16xI2U1I= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1778355746; c=relaxed/simple; bh=DpnxMf7/g3JLlh+bs1qNDL7n51Ay4THKa/9kBFr5ohI=; h=Date:From:To:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=J/Bqw1tfArlD5wx9WKUew2szO94fynhWRfqWuxxSdOsi0HPz+jP99rhs5UQLfiwa8nQQ1oQQ96MLbZiCkKG4nO9Q2I/xelNrWWi8wiau4VHjSssjbzcOnwNb6SsxO2Aq3H8rhYidezMMGGNixuswZqB7y2hl025aZsLco9/RYt4= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=rESGoWgP; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="rESGoWgP" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 8845FC2BCB2; Sat, 9 May 2026 19:42:24 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1778355745; bh=DpnxMf7/g3JLlh+bs1qNDL7n51Ay4THKa/9kBFr5ohI=; h=Date:From:To:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=rESGoWgPmonl/qF+a2fx1s5vpBLgp1um75QfhmyiZWST9YJrPzov6Qpe83FrqYG9T szXo02wt1qWM031Emlo77uN/dTxBdIipftsAyd8KaWk5WmhEoyd7J/fRAeb4jOSzMh +PAva6CSgIVnCKkKK83waxmH5wv1iuv7EaR2LuW79h9PQrXSs9IyD7IwdbRn6dtqRP I1SWO4sHPTLY/zscR2oDYRs0zA7Z+TJhdPEZrxa6jb5r9EAUMbgcfvyIGM1kckGwki jTBdiXkA6+X40lCshJgHu/yBgYQ/JW9O9L/saV6QdZ+h9O7fOYS2BREtYO/a1GsfUI zyowaznzgzyiw== Date: Sat, 9 May 2026 21:42:21 +0200 From: Alejandro Colomar To: Russ Allbery , debian-policy@lists.debian.org, "Dr. Tobias Quathamer" , linux-man@vger.kernel.org, Helge Kreutzmann , "G. Branden Robinson" Subject: Re: Stop compressing manual pages Message-ID: References: <87ms364c05.fsf@hope.eyrie.org> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-man@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha512; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="tr4ko54wakl4cidf" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: --tr4ko54wakl4cidf Content-Type: text/plain; protected-headers=v1; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: Alejandro Colomar To: Russ Allbery , debian-policy@lists.debian.org, "Dr. Tobias Quathamer" , linux-man@vger.kernel.org, Helge Kreutzmann , "G. Branden Robinson" Subject: Re: Stop compressing manual pages Message-ID: References: <87ms364c05.fsf@hope.eyrie.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Hi Colin, On 2026-04-20T11:14:52+0100, Colin Watson wrote: > On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 11:06:34AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > > Alejandro Colomar writes: > > > On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 02:47:33PM +0100, Dr. Tobias Quathamer wrote: > > >> thanks for your bug report and the provided statistics. I haven't th= ought > > >> about this up until now, because it violates Debian Policy. Quoting = =66rom > > >> Section 12.1 > > >> (https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#manual-pages): > > >>=20 > > >> "Manual pages should be installed compressed using gzip -9." > >=20 > > [...] > >=20 > > > Yup, I'd like that policy to change. I've added debian-policy@ to th= is > > > mail (and also linux-man@). > >=20 > > Colin, do you have an opinion on this as the man-db maintainer? The > > software you maintain is probably the primary consumer by a significant > > margin of the installed manual pages. > >=20 > > The rationale in Debian for compressing documentation in general is for > > embedded systems and other small installations, and it applies to just > > about anything that can be safely compressed (manual pages are only one > > example). But this rule also predates such facilities as the nodoc build > > profile, and is several decades old and thus predates the growth in > > storage size even in small embedded environments that has significantly > > outpaced the size of text-adjacent documents. I would definitely want to > > get feedback from embedded folks before changing this rule, but at least > > at first glance it sounds like a reasonable request worth considering. >=20 > Sorry for being slow to reply to this. >=20 > It's not something I feel as strongly about as Alejandro: in man-db=20 > we've already paid most of the costs (in terms of software complexity)=20 > of making compressed manual pages work well, and we'll have to keep that= =20 > code around for the foreseeable future no matter what. But it's true=20 > that there are continuing annoyances with ad-hoc shell pipelines. >=20 > Let's put it this way: as man-db maintainer, I have no objection to=20 > recommending uncompressed manual pages. Sort of +0 or +0.5. Thanks! > I=20 > definitely agree that embedded folks ought to be consulted, if they=20 > aren't already simply excluding manual pages entirely. Does anyone know how to contact them? Could you please add them to CC (some key people and/or a mailing list)? Have a lovely night! Alex >=20 > --=20 > Colin Watson (he/him) [cjwatson@debian.org] --=20 --tr4ko54wakl4cidf Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAABCgAdFiEES7Jt9u9GbmlWADAi64mZXMKQwqkFAmn/jhcACgkQ64mZXMKQ wqmfEQ//bLSCS2BYc6CoE50ChpuL66yc58KtOKkec0Ii50yLU/mQVWnJLmCPd3Of Y6MKH6vMOyhzrLyMgIYV8YdCz62969TQsfTK4jwigupsslkbrohHCjmmzurt51WR +xq/AeBVtlfrpJZ8cec9vR4SIph8KvQXFdDawMdBCEf+6ljQ/DnjHPXarIwYf3he 0MbYKjYwINPqAffLjomMbhrCEM90kmbbzcB8Co4+fbafMo8rbGaEMZnoGuY5KSgb iaNG03sjJ5phvjSlp9MvNB59gqudCn38cV48Y/7trn/uHSmR9ougN2u4G5d5yuOE 6NbOItjl1kC6+GQpBl48iv7wp30305Zlw8m3N6ErrUlq1xc65UfwTlsSseT43oaV eY/7xrewaa+BwhZmNEa/Wprbr3FxFl9PqnLrkN8SdcSSnKXQdXWSGkzXH/5Scq6b mQCRfeW4YyXELTvuBp7nrxLi6+ehOIMIwYQfxK2KrqUKkDtI59gQeGwD/rreIazs mhjL9RXgo1pd69lTtPEM/0kY1fac+h6UF+QjLV23OQ008rslHqxYI7EnluplHO7C ABwy0bKnmxhAxtYIAgzDJ7yy08jNIVV8lVdmfbE8uFvYM+0MA+CJCXotozuk1LPI Tm2eJY7435tolXojmWLogYD2GowGQJnN9doKRlXZ29tFMfGm9MU= =gH6A -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --tr4ko54wakl4cidf--