Providing this information as plain text was doubtless worth the trouble
ten years ago, but it seems likely that hardly anyone reads it in this
format anymore. And the effort required to maintain these files (in the
form of extra-complex markup rules in the relevant parts of the SGML
documentation) is significant. So, let's stop doing that and rely solely
on the other documentation formats.
Per discussion, the plain-text INSTALL instructions might still be worth
their keep, so we continue to generate that file.
Rather than remove HISTORY and src/test/regress/README from distribution
tarballs entirely, replace them with simple stub files that tell the reader
where to find the relevant documentation. This is mainly to avoid possibly
breaking packaging recipes that expect these files to exist.
Back-patch to all supported branches, because simplifying the markup
requirements for release notes won't help much unless we do it in all
branches.
generated text files. Fix build of that file, too.
Put the text files in the right place during make dist, so there are no
extra manual steps required anymore.
* doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml: ditto.
* src/test/regress/README: Regenerate.
* doc/src/sgml/docguide.sgml: Explain how it was done. Explain how
INSTALL and HISTORY are (now) generated.
* doc/src/sgml/Makefile: Implement HISTORY generation to be analoguous
to INSTALL.
Instead of hard-wiring one result file per platform, there is a map file
'resultmap' that says which one to use --- a lot like template/.similar.
I have only created entries in resultmap for my own platform (HPUX) so
far; feel free to add lines for other platforms.
Tom Lane
Peter Eisentraut
Bruce Momjian
Thomas G. Lockhart
Marc G. Fournier