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

[Tom Childers]

Thanks, Alan.  That's good enough for me. I also went through the info  
on the gnu website, and see that there are troff and nroff  
compatibility modes.

Now that this info is in the mail archive for the case, I'm happy to  
see it approved.
-tdc

On Jul 15, 2008, at 10:35 AM, Alan Coopersmith wrote:

> 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
>>>
>>