Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
> So the documentation is there on the web; you can read it before you
> decide to download. 

Right. Thinking about the authoring side: this might also be the master 
copy which you open up to collaborating editors, when you want that, via 
wiki, cvs, snazzy image syncing tool..

> But when you DO decide to download, you get the
> documentation.  If someone updates the version on CRAN, you don't find
> that you are suddenly looking at documentation for the new version
> while running the old one.  I mislike the word "caching" here;  the
> documentation I want at hand is the documentation for the packages/
> change-sets/whatever that I have

Ah, good distinction. I agree that downloading a package should bring a 
corresponding copy of the docs with it, for offline reading, fast 
searching etc. Dr Scheme does the same thing.

And when I want to contribute an edit, I'd expect the local copy to 
point me back to the master copy on the web.