Re: fdl-1.3

[Alfred M\. Szmidt]

   > A symlink?! This can only cause problems:
   >   - When 'git' is run on a Windows system (not Cygwin), AFAIK there are
   >     no symlinks.

   In which case, git treats the file as a single line text, whose
   contents would correspond to the symlink, but the contents of the
   git tree make it obvious (via the different object mode) that it is
   a link.

   >   - When 'git' is run on Linux on a vfat file system, there are
   >   - no symlinks.

   Ditto.  git can already work around such deficient file systems
   when it comes to versioning the file, and hopefully no one is crazy
   enough to actually try developing git on such a file system.

But makeinfo, copy and others do not work around such deficient file
systems, and one cannot expect every tool to do so.

   >   - When you use 'tar' with option 'h' to copy the directory, the
   >     copy will be different from the original: it will have the
   >     symlink replaced by its target's contents.

   Which is perfectly fine - the copy in gnulib is for reference, and
   whether it is a symlink or a copy shouldn't matter.  It just made
   my life as autoconf maintainer easier to be able to add a line to
   cfg.mk that does 'cp gnulib/doc/fdl.texi autoconf/doc/',
   
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=autoconf.git;a=commitdiff;h=5bf2204#patch2

That will not work if you do it on a vfat filesystem, all you will get
is a single line text file; which will produce the wrong info manual.
It will also not help if you wish to use fdl.texi directly on a vfat
file system.

The problem is not git handling things like this, but other programs.

   > Please, can't you make fdl.texi a regular file? Either with
   > contents
   > 
   >   @include fdl-1.3.texi
   > 
   > or as a copy of fdl-1.3.texi?

This is a nice and simple solution.