Re: info-dir translator

[Alfred M\. Szmidt]

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   But install-info would still have to be run when installing on any
   non-Hurd system, right?

Yes.

   So a Makefile (or equivalent) that avoids install-info just on the
   Hurd actually has to do *more* work to detect whether to run
   install-info.  And if the Makefile never runs install-info, it
   won't work on any non-Hurd system.

I always considered it wrong to have `make install' run
`install-info'.  Instead, having a script/program that one can run as
part of a cron job or manually is what--I at least--consider a better
solution.  Running `install-info' as part of `make install' might have
made sense when package managers were infrequent, but now it doesn't.

Even so, having `make install' run `install-info' on a system with a
info-dir translator on /share/info/dir wouldn't do much harm, one
could allow for a option that just ignores any writes (instead of
making the file read-only).

   It's good that the Hurd makes this extra power available, but I'm
   not sure using it in this way is a good idea.  Introducing
   incompatibilities in the facilities everyone already uses makes
   more work for everyone.

Well, the main system that GNU programs should run on is GNU, if we
don't use the facilities that GNU provides, what is the point of
having a GNU system?  Of course, we shouldn't introduce
incompatibilities just cause one can...  But when they make the
overall system nicer to work with, I don't see why we shouldn't
introduce them.