From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 30 21:01:48 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DF8FC106564A for ; Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:01:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhs@berklix.com) Received: from tower.berklix.org (tower.berklix.org [83.236.223.114]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7F6D98FC16 for ; Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:01:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: from park.js.berklix.net (p549A7CDC.dip.t-dialin.net [84.154.124.220]) (authenticated bits=0) by tower.berklix.org (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id o5UL1bPM035704; Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:01:39 GMT (envelope-from jhs@berklix.com) Received: from fire.js.berklix.net (fire.js.berklix.net [192.168.91.41]) by park.js.berklix.net (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id o5UL0wvc009012; Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:00:58 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from jhs@berklix.com) Received: from fire.js.berklix.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fire.js.berklix.net (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id o5UL0L5X058705; Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:00:26 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from jhs@fire.js.berklix.net) Message-Id: <201006302100.o5UL0L5X058705@fire.js.berklix.net> To: Erik Cederstrand From: "Julian H. Stacey" Organization: http://www.berklix.com BSD Unix Linux Consultancy, Munich Germany User-agent: EXMH on FreeBSD http://www.berklix.com/free/ X-URL: http://www.berklix.com In-reply-to: Your message "Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:48:04 +0200." <877EF62B-D2BE-422F-8545-DBC63E5AA682@cederstrand.dk> Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:00:21 +0200 Sender: jhs@berklix.com Cc: Julian Elischer , Steve Kargl , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: dwb : groff replacement proposal X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:01:49 -0000 > Den 30/06/2010 kl. 19.07 skrev Steve Kargl: > >=20 > > The fact remains that there is no available alternative that > > contains the functionality of groff. > > I still can't read from this discussion if FreeBSD base actually needs = > all the functionality that groff provides, and if the proposed = > alternatives are lacking needed functionality which cannot be worked = > around by simple changes to the distributed man-pages like the ones = > committed in the last weeks. > > I may be horribly misinformed, but man-page rendering does seem like a = > fairly simple task. > > Erik= There's more use of groff than just being a man page builder. I personaly use it for lots of things, eg (multi lingual (human language) front end input & multiple back end output to .ps .asc & .html, & I developed patches to allow wysiwyg so you can vi in an xterm & each time you type :w , a remake occurs, & gv/ghostview redisplays the .ps (without clicking redisplay). http://berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/wysiwyg.shar.asc Doubtless some other groff users too, whether or not on FreeBSD mail lists. There's been a roff in Unix since V6 ie 1978 or so. Principle of least surprise tilts us to try to avoid discarding it from src/ to ports/, as it would make our Unix less easy to use than others (& we BSDs are supposed to be true Unix inheritance :-) Even BSD needs groff: If some people might rewrite all FreeBSD manuals in some other format, that would still leave other BSD uses of groff eg: new imports to src/ of bits from other BSD eg Net/Open/Dragon whatever, ditto if we import sources from other Unix eg Linux, Solaris, HP-UX etc, & just think of the vast swathe of 3rd party PD software in ports, chunks written by long time Unix people, who of course have written manuals for tools in roff/ nroff/ troff/ groff type syntax. Tossing groff out of src/ to ports/ (as someone suggested a month or so back) would be bad. Cheers, Julian -- Julian Stacey: BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com Mail plain text, Not HTML quoted-printable Base64 http://www.asciiribbon.org