Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:05:28 +0200 From: Cyrille Lefevre <cyrille.lefevre-lists@laposte.net> To: "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs@berklix.com> Cc: Steve Kargl <sgk@troutmask.apl.washington.edu>, Julian Elischer <julian@elischer.org>, Erik Cederstrand <erik@cederstrand.dk>, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: dwb : groff replacement proposal Message-ID: <4C2C1408.6080703@laposte.net> In-Reply-To: <201006302100.o5UL0L5X058705@fire.js.berklix.net> References: <201006302100.o5UL0L5X058705@fire.js.berklix.net>
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Le 30/06/2010 23:00, Julian H. Stacey a =E9crit : >> Den 30/06/2010 kl. 19.07 skrev Steve Kargl: Hi, first of all, I'm not asking to rid out groff from FreeBSD, but I know that *BSD aims to be FSF not aware. I've just seen a few days ago that the "Documenters Work Bench" is=20 available for download. for the ones who don't know what is the DWB, it's the nroff/troff=20 package which inspired groff... no more than this. I then inform you about a possible replacement of groff w/ the DWB. well, the license has to be studed, the troff driver list would be=20 minimal and the mdoc macros would probably be adapted. however, it would probably render manual pages on tty, which is the=20 primary usage asked, I am wrong ? >>> The fact remains that there is no available alternative that >>> contains the functionality of groff. maybe not all functionalities, but at least the one which is to render=20 well on tty. I may be wrong... of course, for printing, groff will be=20 more adavanced, but is this really needed for the common usage ? and if=20 this feature is needed, it may be sufficient to have if from ports. >> 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. you're right. > There's more use of groff than just being a man page builder. > > I personaly use it for lots of things, eg this point doesn't require groff in src/ :-) > Doubtless some other groff users too, whether or not on FreeBSD mail li= sts. > 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 :-) nobody's asking to get rid of *roff... > 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 whate= ver, > 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. if the mdoc macros may be adapted to the DWB, there would be no loss of=20 functionality and since the usual manual pages uses the man macros,=20 which is of course provided as well as the mm and ms macros ones. it's not even impossible than the DWB render better then groff :-) in any case, it's just a story of macros, no more than this, no need to=20 rewrite anything and so. the only problem may be the use of GNUism as if someone wanted to run as = bash script under dash... they are wrong to go this way. > Tossing groff out of src/ to ports/ (as someone suggested a month > or so back) would be bad. except if an acceptable replacement alternative exists and the DWB may=20 be the one ? Regards, Cyrille Lefevre --=20 mailto:Cyrille.Lefevre-lists@laposte.net
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