[bug-gettext] [bug #56111] C# documentation is installed even if csharp support is disabled

[Bruno Haible]

Update of bug #56111 (project gettext):

                  Status:                    None => Wont Fix               
             Assigned to:                    None => haible                 

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Follow-up Comment #2:

Should a package have different documentation on different machines, depending
on whether the package was built with/without C# support? 25 years ago, before
the internet, I would have said yes, because the focus of the user is on their
own machine. Nowadays, people often look up the documentation at
https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/ ; therefore the documentation
should be independent of configure options.

To make things 100% correct, there are two possibilities:

a) The .exe / .dll files (for C#) or .jar files (for Java) are included in the
distribution. The documentation could say "msgfmt and msgunfmt support C# if
mono/mcs available at run time".

b) The .exe / .dll files (for C#) or .jar files (for Java) are NOT included in
the distribution. This is how it is now. The documentation could say "msgfmt
and msgunfmt support C# if mono/mcs available at run time and enabled at build
time."

But such a documentation is not really helpful, because the user must try
anyway. Possibly we could have an option 'msgfmt --supported-languages' and
'msgunfmt --supported-languages' (or similar). But an extra option, just to
tell the user whether to expect an error message or not? This sounds like
overkill.

Regarding a) vs. b): The PACKAGING file already mentions the need to have mono
installed at build time. a) would have the advantage that fewer build tools
are needed. However, it would also introduce versioning issues: what if the C#
version of the tarball creator is newer than the C# version of the user who
installs the package? So, a) would be nice but would introduce issues. I
prefer to stay with b).

In summary, while I agree that there is an issue, I don't see a way to fix it
without overkill.

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