[Doc-SIG] Re: [Python-Dev] Documentation packages

[Tim Peters]

[Dethe Elza]
> While Windows users may have trouble with *.bz2, and be unfamiliar
> enough with the extension *.tgz to not even try (even if it does
> work), I've never known a *nix box to have trouble with *.zip or
> known a unix user who had trouble with *.zip.  So I'd suggest keeping
> the various flavors of documentation, but standardize on zip
> compression.  That will at least remove one variable.

A difficulty is that the HTML doc set compresses *much* better under bz2
than under zip format, and many people download over slow and expensive
dialup lines.  bz2 is preferred for that reason (smaller file == faster and
cheaper download).

> I agree that the main point of all of this is to reduce confusion for
> the newbie coming to the site to download it.  But 90% of those are
> going to be windows users,

I don't believe that, because the Windows installer for Python includes the
full doc set in a Windows-friendly format.  So there's simply no reason for
the vast majority of Windows Python users to download the doc distribution
at all.

Fred, do we have stats on how often each of the files got downloaded for
previous releases?

> and the rest of us have gotten used to living in a windows-dominated
> world.  Using bz2 may get you better compression and save bandwidth,
> but it wasn't standard the last time I installed RedHat or Debian.
> Zip has it's faults, but everybody is familiar with it.

No argument there.