Re: cannonball: Add a MESSAGE banner post-install with instructions to the place to copy ROMs. Suggested by nia@

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Santhosh Raju <fox%netbsd.org@localhost> writes:

>> Part of where I'm coming from is that I don't think pkgrsc should help
>> people infringe copyright - and I have no idea what's going on in this
>> case.
>
> No, I am not packaging any ROMs here, just the "Cannonball" OutRun engine.
>
> Even the authors of the package do not provide the ROM. The ROMs
> should be obtained by the end-user. The only information given is
> where to put the ROMs so that the end user can put it in the
> appropriate location and execute the program.
>
> Also packaging the ROMs would be illegal in this case as I believe
> SEGA still holds the rights to the OutRun game.

So the instructions are just that if you have a ROM, because you
physically have a cartridge, where you should put the bits.

We package things with other people holding copyright all the time.  The
issues are whether there is a license to distribute.  But even for
software with no public grants of license, there are sometimes packages
for the convenience of people who have the distfile under a private
license (that pkgsrc is not aware of), so they can use pkg_info etc.
machinery instead of a cowboy install of their binaries.   But I don't
want to suggest that this makes sense in this situation, not least
becuase I have very little idea of the underlying facts.

> Unfortunately there is no manpage for this piece of software. Most of
> the things that the user needs to know is put up in their Wiki, which
> is set as the HOMEPAGE= in the Makefile. I can provide that link in
> the README that I create.

I suppose you can file a bug upstream :-)  On UNIX, software is supposed
to have man pages.

Or you could make it a man page, basically saying

  the content that belongs in the man page is at foo

  the rom location is bar

and then "man cannonball" as someone would expect would point them in
the right direction.  But this all may be too much work for no real
point.

>> Perhaps pkg_nstall could get an environment variable or config that, if
>> set, prints out a standard read-the-docs lecture.  I'm kidding about
>> that, but our "read the docs" MESSAGEs have gotten out of control.
>
> Understood :), I shall modify the package to install a basic README in
> the docs folder.

What I meant to say earlier is that I think opinions proably differ
about whether MESSAGE should exist, or at least about the
least-compelling 95%.  But in recent discussion about another MESSAGE
issue, there were three cranky opinions (including mine) and none in
support.   I made myself a note for after the freeze to propose changes
to the guide.