linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH]man-pages : section 9 for kernel api description.

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Message-ID: <cfd18e0f0907242147h809b14qede7d4fbc200cc99@mail.gmail.com>
Date:	Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:47:47 +0200
From:	Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@...glemail.com>
To:	GeunSik Lim <leemgs1@...il.com>
Cc:	Américo Wang <xiyou.wangcong@...il.com>,
	tovalds@...ux-foundation.org,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH]man-pages : section 9 for kernel api description.

Very late follow up here...

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 5:06 PM, GeunSik Lim<leemgs1@...il.com> wrote:
> Thank you for your opinion.
>
> 2009/5/13 Américo Wang <xiyou.wangcong@...il.com>:
>> On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 11:04:28AM +0900, GeunSik Lim wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>Dear Michael Kerrisk,
>>>
>>>Are you maintainer of man-pages(man-pages-3.XX.tar.gz)?
>>>I am not sure...
>>
>> Yes, he is.
>>
>>>
>>>I use fedora 9 distribution as Linux based Desktop OS currently.
>>>I have one proposal about "#> man <linux-kernel-api>" command.
>>>Can you tell me your opinion about below patch?
>>>Thanks reading.
>>>
>>>commit 45e950c98412c002c47254507a199731315c7c2b
>>>Author: GeunSik,Lim <leemgs1@...il.com>
>>>Date:   Wed May 13 10:49:47 2009 +0900
>>>
>>>    Append Section 9 info of man command.
>>>
>>>    We view description of the Linux kernel API with man command.
>>>       For example,
>>>       Fedoar9#> yum install kernel-doc*
>>>       Fedora9#> man kobject_rename  or
>>>       Fedora9#> man kthread_create
>>
>> Why?
>> Why do you want kernel api doc be in man pages?
>> Why not just browsing the kernel source code?
>>
> I want Michael to append patch file  in the man-pages source that I
> sent because
> Many linux distributions (ex: Fedora , openSUSE, and so on ) already
> support  kernel api for man currently.
> In general, kernel api(ex:kernel-doc-2.6.29.1-30.fc10.noarch.rpm) is
> located in the
> /usr/share/man/man9/ directory when we installed linux distribution
> like Fedora by default.
> So, I think that we need description and section 9 folder(man9) in the
> man-pages source
> to understand  meaning of man 9.
>
>
>> Kernel APIs are not stable at all, this is also a reason why you
>> should not include their doc into man pages.
> I agree that Kernel APIs is not stable.
> But, I believe that we can utilize "#> man <linux-kernel-api>" command
> in the own
> Linux distribution easy to use about "uname -a" Linux kernel version.
> This support is a valuable. I think that The problem deserves solving.

I agree that there's a problem that needs solving here, but I don't
think it's one that can be solved by man-0pages, whose mission is to
document the kerenl-userpsace and libc APIs. (This doesn't mean that
kernel APIs couldn't be documented in man pages, but it would be a
different project.)

Cheers,

Michael


-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Watch my Linux system programming book progress to publication!
http://blog.man7.org/
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