Axiom help browser fails with parse error

Dear All,

I just upgraded Axiom, from a version from autumn 2005, to the January
2008 version.  After doing this, running Axiom led to a help browser
window that immediately disappeared, accompanied by an error message

syntax error: expected a newcommand
not a word
(HyperDoc) While parsing RootPage on line 1
         in the file
 	/usr/local/axiom/mnt/linux/doc/hypertex/pages/rootpage.ht
Trying to print the next ten tokens
item on rootpage \. \par \newcommand \{ \localinfo \} \{

Thereafter, I had an Axiom prompt at which I could enter commands, but
no help browser window.

I was able to fix this by commenting out the line

\localinfo

(line 80) of
/usr/local/axiom/mnt/linux/doc/hypertex/pages/rootpage.ht.

Is this likely to cause any unwanted side effects?

-- 

Thanks,

Dan Hatton