On Thursday 22 May 2003 20:56, Dylan Carlson wrote:
> On Thu May 22 2003 2:34 pm, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> > This is why you also get the URL, so you can find out for yourself. I'm
> > not in favor of adding a "long" description as other package formats do,
> > although I won't object -- this is just my personal opinion.
>
> I'm glad someone else brought it up.  And since it's been mentioned, I want
> to say I support the idea of a long description.   The short descriptions
> should be under a fixed number of characters, and the long-descriptions
> should be allowed as many characters as needed to describe the package
> completely.
>
> And some packages do in fact need a lot of explanation.  The existing
> DESCRIPTION metadata is not sufficient, and ebuild comments nor ChangeLog
> entries are adequate for this.
>
> It's one area that *BSD ports have an advantage (imo).

My biggest point against long descriptions is the fact they need to be 
written. That is not such a big point if the users will do it. I do think 
though that a description file might be more appropriate than putting the 
long description in the ebuild. A package description should always be the 
same I feel, even over versions.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net