Randall, please don't post here

[Randall R Schulz]

Keith,

[ My own given name being a sensitive point with me, I'm posting this 
despite Harold's request to let his message be the last on this thread. So 
"for the record..." ]


At 11:10 2002-11-06, you wrote:
>For the record, I checked my copy. It didn't have any mention of -rootless.
>That doesn't mean that someone has or hasnt thought to add such a section 
>to it.
>Instead of flogging an obvious novice (lars) who couldn't find the option, 
>which
>is partially understandable as it wasn't documented, I thought perhaps that
>reflection on the current-ness of the packaged documentation would be more
>productive and positive than vented impatience.


Harold Hunt posted this as part of the original thread that made me so cranky:

>>Randall,
>>
>>Be nice.
>>
>>I posted an announcement for XFree86-xserv-4.2.0-15, but I did not 
>>mention that you should use the ``-rootless'' parameter for the rootless 
>>mode.  Rootless mode is in the stable release, but it is still considered 
>>experimental because it may leak memory and it may have certain 
>>undesireable behaviors.  Although, it seems that rootless mode is pretty 
>>much complete because there have not been any significant complaints.
>>
>>I did a little SNAFU with respect to the man page because I updated the 
>>man page, but I did not roll a new release of the man pages package.  I 
>>should probably do that, but I don't think many users will be pleased 
>>with redownloading all XFree86 man pages just to get one new one.  I will 
>>have to think about that one.
>>
>>Harold


This, then, is part of the answer to Keith's inability to find a mention of 
"-rootless" in the on-line documentation.


>Granted, as Russell pointed out to me, it is preferred that people search the
>archives before pestering the discussion list, and I agree with that 
>philosophy in
>theory and practice, but not everyone gets it. (Including my boss.) On the 
>other
>hand, it seems one could argue that we would never need man pages in the 
>Internet
>age, as everyone who needs to know how to use something can just search 
>through the
>archives of the mailing list dedicated to that program. I'm not sure 
>that's the
>best method of disseminating documentation, though.

Given that I see no Russell in this discussion or anywhere in my 
Cygwin-XFree86 archive, I assume Kevin's referring to me.

I'm Randall. "Randy" if you can say it without snickering...


>As for me, I'll be sure to be more specific in the future.
>
>Regards,
>
>Kdt
>
>Christopher Faylor was recently quoted as saying...
> >
> > I'm not sure what you are pleading for but I don't see why asking people
> > to contribute is a terrible thing on any list.  And, pointing out that
> > it is ludicrous to ask hundreds of people (i.e., the people on this
> > mailing list) to check on something like "Is it in the man page yet"
> > when one could easily check this on their on system is not something
> > that even a (shudder) "newbie" should have problems with.


Randall Schulz
Mountain View, CA USA