A concern regarding texmf/doc/{html,info}

[Matthew Swift]

Hello folks.  The TDS draft shows that great care went into it, and I
would guess that you have already recognized the problem with the
<category>-directories texmf/doc/html and texmf/doc/info, namely that
these categories are reserved for file formats and not file content,
like the others.  Suppose I want documentation on Metafont.  I will
have to look in three places: doc/metafont, doc/html, doc/info.

Now, I'm guessing there is a temptation to treat the html and info
formats specially because it makes things easier for the programs
which read those formats.  But does it?

Good html should use relative links, or full URLs for references on
other machines.  So why couldn't a group of html files that comprise a
tutorial on metafont go into doc/metafont?  If the html cluster covers
more than one category, shouldn't it go in doc/generic? 

In the case of info files, GNU Emacs 19.29 anyway supports the merging
of multiple "dir" files into the (virtual) topmost node, so that a
single "dir" file living somewhere in the texmf/doc tree and
containing relative links would dispense with the need for the
doc/info category.  Using texmf/doc/dir would allow shorter relative
filenames than using texmf/doc/info/dir (i.e.,
"../metafont/metafont-docs.info" is longer than
"metafont/metafont-docs.info").

Are info files now readable and with readers other than Emacs and the
GNU standalone info reader?  If so, this would confound the solution
I've proposed, of course.

Regards,

Matt