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Re: [Groff] Replacing groff with troff?


From: Charlie Kester
Subject: Re: [Groff] Replacing groff with troff?
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2010 15:52:40 -0700
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14)

On Tue 01 Jun 2010 at 12:48:45 PDT Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Charlie,

All they're doing is putting mdocml in base to handle manpages.

   http://mdocml.bsd.lv/

   DESCRIPTION

   mdocml is a suite of tools compiling "-mdoc", the roff macro package
   of choice for BSD manual pages, and "-man", the predominant
   historical package for UNIX manuals. The mission of mdocml is to
   deprecate groff, the GNU roff implementation, for displaying -mdoc
   pages whilst providing token support for -man.

   Why? groff amounts to over 5 MB of source code, most of which is C++
   and all of which is GPL. It runs slowly, produces uncertain output,
   and varies in operation from system to system. mdocml strives to fix
   this (respectively small, C, ISC-licensed, fast and regular).

"uncertain output"?

You'd have to ask the author of mdocml what he means by that.  I'd be
interested in hearing the answer too.

As I said, I think groff's GPLv3 license is the main concern with having
it in base, although the performance arguments are carrying some weight
with some people.
I didn't join this thread to make (or defend) those arguments, only to
try to keep the record straight about what FreeBSD is and is not doing.

Disclaimer: I'm just an interested user, not a FreeBSD developer or spokesman. But I'm also an interested user of groff and all other roff related tools!





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