Packaging/Packaging Documentation

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Proposal for including external package documentation

This is the result of a short discussion at the Project_Meeting_2007-10-24.

For some packages there are tons of documentation on external webpages. Some packagers include links to that documentation in the PDB, some add them to the package description, some add them to a README.SuSE file in the docudirectory of the package, most packagers ignore them.

As a result, endusers who want more information about a package start the openSUSE helpcenter and just find the original package help. If this isn't enough, they hopefully start their browser and search the internet - more or less successful.

So what about a solution which adds external documentation links directly into the helpcenter? So the users don't have to search forums, websites and so on for useful help - the helpcenter has the really useful links for that package already!

Currently most of this seems to be implemented already! Have a look at /usr/share/susehelp/meta/Internet/sdb_online.desktop for example! So should we suggest packagers to create an additional desktop file containing external links for their packages? If this is the solution, I'm fine with it - let's place it in the SUSE Package Conventions, then.