modernize packaging

[cbm755]

I looked at this:

https://github.com/gnu-octave/packages/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md

Still todo:

• learn connection if any between old octave-forge and new site
• Use actions to automate releases on tag push #1166
• update the how to release instructions (on wiki or in source?)
• more updates to HOWTO-release, maybe strikeout the bits about tagging on legacy OctaveForge
• update DESCRIPTION?
  • remove/edit the note in the README file that discusses Github/sourceforge
• host docs somewhere? Still on OctaveForge is one option
• other stuff?

[cbm755]

See this post: https://octave.discourse.group/t/welcome-octave-packages/2954

This simplifies releases overall but some decisions will be needed, such as where to host the docs. See thread.

[cbm755]

@alexvong243f strong feelings about any of this? I haven't looked into the issue of hosting the docs but other than that I can do the actual release whenever.

(I suggest later we try to automate it with Github Actions)

[cbm755]

@alexvong243f I think we should do the 3.0.0 release in the traditional way, bumping most of these decisions to a later release. Sound ok?

[alexvong243f]

No problem, we can make those decisions later.

For the docs, I think it depends whether we want to use latex in the docs. If we don't need latex rendering, we can host them in the git repo as markdown files. We can always convert them to other formats using e.g. pandoc and host them somewhere else (e.g. readthedocs). On the other hand, if we do need latex rendering, we may need some other solutions. What do you think?

[cbm755]

They are statically generated (that's what make html does). Specifically the docs are: https://octave.sourceforge.io/symbolic/overview.html