Douglas Gregor wrote:
It is OK to move content out of the release and into the web site if it is unlikely to be referenced in the process of actually using a release. Any of the content that is likely to used by users of a release must be restored. Releases have to be usable without Internet connectivity.
I agree, but how much content do we actually need in the release? I think we should be minimal, focusing on installation, "Getting Started", library documentation, and "what's new in this release."
Pages like the License information, How to report bugs, and FAQ have to be part of a release.
The license is in LICENSE_1_0.txt. The discussion and justification of the license in more/ don't need to be in a release, because that's the kind of thing you find when you google for the Boost license to see if it's compatible with another license you're using.
The FAQ is mostly information for people who either (1) are decided whether or how to get Boost, or (2) thinking of participating in the Boost community in some way. Both of those require an Internet connection anyway, so there's no need to have the FAQ in a release.
Not as far as I'm concerned. It irks me no end to be browsing though the release image on my machine and find myself referencing some data on some website. Currently this occurs when I browse the documentation on my local version of the SVN trunk. This is because the html versions of the documentation aren't included - which is OK if they are generated by the installation process or downloaded with the release. I would be curious as to what the plans are in this regard.
Same with bug reporting: to report a bug, you need an internet connection, and the first thing you're going to do is go to www.boost.org. So long as the link to the bug tracker is clear on www.boost.org, that's fine.
Obviously active pages such as bug tracker are going to require internet connectivity. But what's the argument for not making the other release and web pages one thing? Seems easier to me even if it make the release bigger. By making two things, it creates another maintainence task. Robert Ramey