I install the POSIX man pages so I can program portably. I want to see
foo(3posix) before foo(2). I am just trying to work out whether this
makes me unusual (and I should just use MANSECT), or whether I’m
justified in filing a bug report. I think the latter: the general idea
of the default man page section ordering seems to be that higher-level
content is shown before lower-level, so, user programs (1) before
administrator utilities (8), libc (3) before kernel (2); and hence, it
seems to me, POSIX (3posix) should come before both sections 2 and 3.

However, I would not go so far as to suggest that 1posix should come
before 1: here, a different argument seems to apply: that it is the
actual utilities being described, and users are most interested in
those. It is mostly developers who need to know the POSIX spec for
userspace programs, and as in this case users trump developers, so
1posix is trumped by 1.

tags 611013 wontfix
thanks

I can see arguments either way.  For myself, though, I think I prefer to
see the library documentation for the system I'm actually working on by
default, and I expect that documentation to contain CONFORMANCE sections
where appropriate.  While this does require more effort from the
authors, the manpages package tends on the whole to be pretty good at
that these days.

I also have manpages-posix installed so that I can program portably, but
it doesn't tend to have notes about (for example) when a particular
function used to be broken in previous libc or kernel versions, and I
find that sort of thing useful too.

So, I think I'm inclined not to fix this bug, and suggest using MANSECT
or modifying /etc/manpath.config; but I'm leaving this bug open in case
somebody wants to have another go at persuading me otherwise.

Cheers,