Here's an analysis of your `bug report' concerning bsd.subdir.mk.
Frankly, it's an *extremely* bad report, one of the worst ever sent to
one of our lists.  I'm sending this to current-users in the hope that
people will take note of it, and attempt to send better bug reports in
the future.

Remember, *your* problems get fixed faster and *you* get a much
friendlier response if you send a decent bug report!  Really!  Bad or
misdirected bug reports may get dropped indefinitely.


Anyway, an annotated copy of your mail:

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From: Julian H Stacey <Julian.H.Stacey@regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de>
To: current@NetBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: patch for share/man/man4/Makefile to help small machines
Cc: stacey@freefall.cdrom.com
Message-Id: <94Oct9.163224met.43037@eikon.regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de>
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 16:32:19 +0100

[...]

But neither is it nice when the make goes recursive if it can't cd to a non
existant directory,

[That was the only piece of useful information in the entire message,
and even it was worded in a mildly inflammatory way.]

		    & I simply don't have the space for other architectures
on that box (PC532).

[The amount of disk space you have in your machine is irrelevant to
the bug.]

		      (I dont have a net on the PC532, I figure _loads_ of
other people don't want man's for other arch's forced on them either).

[I figure _loads_ of other people can speak for themselves, and the
term `forced on' is inflammatory.  Absolutely nothing is being `forced
on' anyone here.]

I _do_ maintain a full source tree in the spirit of completness, 
to give to friends, for dial in access on my large i486 box, but on my PC532
I _must_ strip the slack.

[Irrelevant.]

What would be ideal would be if someone could fix the NetBSD mk macros,
so if a SUBDIR element doesn't exist, the make doesnt go recursive
atemmpting the CD,

[It would be nice if every bug were magically gone, but nobody is
going to fix them if you don't send decent bug reports!  This one
doesn't come even close, but I fixed it anyway.]

		   (FreeBSD doesn't suffer this,

[Like we care?]

						 perhaps NetBSD has been fixed
recently, but it certainly used to suffer this).

[Well, how about telling us which version of the .mk files you're
using?]

If mk macros were to be fixed, that'd be the ideal solution:
	- If I then strip the slack, & make -i,  it'll work,
	- & your big systems will be happy too, compiling manuals to
	  export shared to nets.

I spend most time working on FreeBSD & PC532 specific NetBSD things,

[Yes, but what does that have to do with the bug?]

so don't personally want to fix

[The fact that you didn't enclose a patch demonstrates that.]

			        the fragile NetBSD share/mk/*	;
anyway,

[The existance of a single bug hardly makes it `fragile'.  The use of
that term is inflammatory.]

	I figure the fixes will be more popular & acceptable
if they come from someone like you :-)

[Irrelevant, and incorrect.  We judge things on technical merits.]

I'd be happier to not need my patch man/man4/Makefile, if only someone would
fix share/mk/* SUBDIR handling so `su ; make -i' didnt recurse infinitely
on absent directories 	:-)

[You've said that three times now.  Do you suppose that we get the
point?]

Best Regards

Julian Stacey <stacey@freefall.cdrom.com>	
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