GNU Troff (groff) [LSARC/2008/425 FastTrack timeout 07/14/2008]

[Alan Coopersmith]

I'll re-open the case for now, but at least part of the answers are clear:

1) We're shipping groff because it works with documents we get from developers
   who work on other distros that our nroff/troff don't work with.  (Examples
   include CR's 6720105, 6675433, 6510256 and probably a bunch more.)

2) We're shipping groff because it includes long-standing pieces of the *roff
   toolchain that are missing from Solaris, such as pic & grap.  (CR 4470869)

3) We're shipping groff because it's a tool that's familiar to Linux & BSD
   developers that Solaris doesn't have, and that alone has been declared to
   be reason enough.

I'll let the project team research the compatibility issue, though I wonder
if it's really an issue for this case or the advised future project to replace
Solaris *roff with groff.

	-Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith at sun.com
	 Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering

Tom Childers wrote:
> Alan,
> 
> I'm still wondering if the groff tool is backward compatible with any
> other *roff tools. I would like a statement, and preferably man page
> documentation to that effect. Otherwise, why are we promoting a new
> *roff tool?
> 
> Please keep the case open until this issue is resolved. I imagine it's
> available from the groff authors.
> -tdc
> 
> On Jul 15, 2008, at 9:57 AM, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> 
>> Alan Coopersmith wrote:
>>> I am sponsoring this fasttrack for Padraig O'Briain of the Desktop team.
>>> The timeout is set for one week from today, Monday July 14, and the case
>>> requests a patch release binding as it only introduces new commands.
>>
>> With no remaining open questions, this case is timed out, and closed
>> approved.
>>
>> The project team is given the informal advice (i.e. I'm not writing an
>> opinion
>> just to say this) to work with the ON utilities team that owns
>> nroff/troff &
>> possibly the Indiana team, to evaluate if any of these tools can
>> replace the
>> old *roff tools in a future project.
>>
>> -- 
>>     -Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith at sun.com
>>      Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
>>
>