On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 08:34:58 -0200 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > The main difference between a "pointer file" and a symlink is that the > first indicates a temporary solution, teaching people that the > file got renamed and were it is located now. As such, we can remove > those "pointer files" on some future Kernel releases without much concern. > > A symlink indicates a more permanent situation, as people will keep > using the symlinked files as before. That means that any attempt to > remove those in the future will generate concerns. > > So, I'm in favor of using the "pointer files" instead, as it > gives us an easier way to get rid of them when we find convenient. So you've all long since forgotten this discussion, I'm sure, but I've been pondering it on and off for quite a while. The movement of some of the more well-known documents has been a concern of mine from the beginning; that is why I delayed those changes for a cycle and raised the issue at a number of conferences, culminating in the kernel summit in November. I got a strong sense of consensus that we should go ahead and move the files. As Mauro says, symlinks are forever; they say we'll never really succeed in rationalizing the structure of Documentation/. But we don't nail down the location of any other files in the kernel source tree in this manner, and my own feeling is that we shouldn't do that here either. The kernel source tree is not an API. So my thinking at the moment is that we should retain the current "pointer files" in the vague hope that, someday, we won't need them anymore. Thanks, jon -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
