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Old 18th October 2010
backrow backrow is offline
Real Name: Anthony J. Bentley
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Posts: 136
Default OpenBSD −= groff

schwarze@ has been making some strides in removing groff(1) from the OpenBSD tree, and it is likely to be cut out this week. The ports tree is ready for the switch.

Mandoc has been compiling most OpenBSD base system manpages for a few months now. It provides several advantages over groff:
  • It’s small
  • It’s fast
  • It’s BSD‐licensed
  • It’s written in C (I hear groff is the only C++ code in the OpenBSD tree—removing it will improve the situation for PCC as well)

What’s more, this will make things better for actual roff users. groff will be moving to the ports tree, and it’ll be a newer version—1.20, instead of the ancient 1.15 currently in base (that has some irritating formatting quirks).

Other BSDs are on track to move to mandoc as well. Kristaps Dzonsons has certainly done a great service by providing us with this software.
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