[Slackbuilds-users] new maintainers omitting READMEs

[David Chmelik]

On 3/25/25 7:59 AM, fsLeg wrote:
> Here are some READMEs for the programs SlackBuilds for which I maintain:
>
> - popcorntime: <https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop/blob/development/README.md>
> - dart-sass: <https://github.com/sass/dart-sass/blob/main/README.md>
> - shadowsocks-rust: <https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks-rust/blob/master/README.md>
>
> So I'm supposed to include these walls of text with ungodly amount of irrelevant information as the script's README? I'd rather copy some relevant short excerpt that describes the piece of software in question and be done with that. If anyone really wants the entire README, it's copied to /usr/doc by the SlackBuild anyway.
'Wall of text' is a false propaganda concept popularized by 
anti-intellectuals of The Illiterati.  SlackBuilds.org templates have a 
length, so yes, can be 'relevant length' even if a few upstream READMEs 
(probably not most... becoming more common to by short or nonexistent) 
are longer than the template.

> SBo is a repository of build scripts, not programs themselves. You don't see walls of text in, say, Debian's package descriptions. Those are of varying lengths, but never too long.
>
> Should READMEs on SBo be more descriptive? Probably. But some developers don't provide a concise description of their programs [...]
They all do for first line in sbopkg menu.

> or it's way too concise, so the only way of having a more descriptive README would be to write it yourself, and how many maintainers would be willing to do that? It's like writing documentation, almost nobody likes to do that.
It's not like writing documentation: look how much larger an average 
software manual (printed) or even manpage is.
> I think the idea is that a user would already know what program they need, README would be just to confirm it's the right one. How many people just browse a repo looking for programs to try instead of just googling/knowing something they need and then looking if it's there? Especially a third-party unofficial repo. Also, a lot of packages are just dependencies, not many people care what they do by themselves. Do those need descriptive READMEs?
I'd guess that's mostly nonsense; many people find most their programs 
in software managers including programs to run build scripts, such as 
sbopkg: I do this weekly.  Most what I installed I found in sbopkg, not 
by finding a webpage for software I don't even know exists, which only 
happened in rare cases.  For third-party repositories (such as 
slackers.it and quasi-official alienBOB & RLWorkman's ones (them being 
Slackware team members)) it's even more the case that I look in 
repositories to find/know what I want to try.  Dependencies need READMEs 
just as much as what they depend on, because people may read all lines 
in sbopkg (I did originally and maybe once/year, and all updates, or at 
least searching through for 'added') and it's common to add software 
depending on those, or even just write a program depending on them; a 
large number of dependencies have software using them by multiple 
maintainers, and I occasionally install libraries/APIs I want to try, 
and made a SlackBuild of a library (though it has test software).