[groff] 14/32: roff(7): Fix content, style, markup nits.

[G. Branden Robinson]

gbranden pushed a commit to branch master
in repository groff.

commit c415a6367b9500645957803ec6c093f9795c6aae
Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
AuthorDate: Tue Oct 4 06:36:44 2022 -0500

    roff(7): Fix content, style, markup nits.
    
    Content:
    * Rename subsection "Heirloom Doctools troff" to "Other free roffs" and
      rewrite it.  Mention neatroff.
    * Speak of "the roff language" in the singular.
    
    Style:
    * Give parenthesized bold glyphs room to breathe on typesetters.
    * Drop redundant reference to year of UTP's publication.
    * Tighten wording.
    
    Markup:
    * Adjust dead-tree pagination.
---
 man/roff.7.man | 86 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------------------
 1 file changed, 47 insertions(+), 39 deletions(-)

diff --git a/man/roff.7.man b/man/roff.7.man
index 762aeb893..04bdf4045 100644
--- a/man/roff.7.man
+++ b/man/roff.7.man
@@ -731,29 +731,28 @@ and determine its type size and color.
 The formatting process turns input characters into output glyphs.
 .
 A few characters commonly seen on keyboards are treated
-specially by
+specially by the
 .I roff
-languages and may not look correct in output if used unthinkingly;
+language and may not look correct in output if used unthinkingly;
 they are
 the (double) quotation mark
-.RB ( \[dq] ),
+.RB ( \|\[dq]\| ),
 the neutral apostrophe
-.RB ( \[aq] ),
+.RB ( \|\[aq]\| ),
 the minus sign
 .RB ( \- ),
 the backslash
-.RB ( \[rs] ),
+.RB ( \|\[rs]\| ),
 the caret or circumflex accent
 .RB ( \[ha] ),
 the grave accent
-.RB ( \[ga] ),
+.RB ( \|\[ga]\| ),
 and the tilde
 .RB ( \[ti] ).
 .
-All are available via
+All of these and more can be produced with
 .I special character
-escape sequences,
-along with numerous other symbols;
+escape sequences;
 see
 .MR groff_char @MAN7EXT@ .
 .
@@ -1212,8 +1211,8 @@ for Fifth Edition Unix,
 Ossanna combined and reimplemented the two
 .IR roff s
 in C,
-using preprocessor conditions of that language to generate both from a
-single source tree.
+using that language's preprocessor to generate both from a single source
+tree.
 .
 .
 .P
@@ -1337,11 +1336,11 @@ An output driver for PostScript,
 was swiftly developed.
 .
 However,
-due to AT&T software licensing practices,
+AT&T's software licensing practices kept
 Ossanna's
 .IR troff ,
-with its tight coupling to the capabilities of the C/A/T,
-remained in parallel distribution with device-independent
+with its tight coupling to the C/A/T's capabilities,
+in parallel distribution with device-independent
 .I troff
 throughout the 1980s.
 .
@@ -1411,36 +1410,41 @@ standard today.
 .
 .
 .\" ====================================================================
-.SS "Heirloom Doctools \f[I]troff\f[]"
+.SS "Other free \f[I]roff\f[]s"
 .\" ====================================================================
-.\" XXX GBR leaves off here.
 .
-An alternative is
-.UR https://\:github\:.com/\:n\-t\-roff/\:heirloom\-doctools
-.I Gunnar Ritter's Heirloom roff project
-.UE
-project, started in 2005, which provides enhanced versions of the
-various roff tools found in the OpenSolaris and Plan\~9 operating
-systems, now available under free licenses.
+In 2007, \" TODO: verify
+Caldera/SCO and Sun Microsystems,
+having acquired rights to AT&T Documenter's Workbench
+.I troff
+(a descendant of the Bell Labs code),
+released it under a free but GPL-incompatible license.
 .
-You can get this package with the shell command:
-.RS
-.EX
-\[Do] git clone https://github.com/n\-t\-roff/heirloom\-doctools
-.EE
-.RE
+.UR https://\:github\:.com/\:n\-t\-roff/\:DWB3.3
+This implementation
+.UE
+was made portable to modern POSIX systems,
+and adopted and enhanced first by Gunnar Ritter and then Carsten Kunze
+to produce
+.UR https://github.com/n-t-roff/heirloom-doctools
+Heirloom Doctools
+.I troff
+.UE .
 .
 .
 .P
-Moreover, one finds there the
-.UR https://\:github\:.com/\:n\-t\-roff/\:DWB3.3
-.I Original Documenter's Workbench Release 3.3
-.UE .
+In 2012, \" according to its Git history
+Ali Gholami Rudi began working on
+.UR https://\:github\:.com/\:aligrudi/\:neatroff
+.IR neatroff ,
+.UE
+a permissively licensed new implementation.
 .
 .
 .\" ====================================================================
 .SH "Using \f[I]roff\f[]"
 .\" ====================================================================
+.\" XXX GBR leaves off here.
 .
 Many people use
 .I roff
@@ -1777,8 +1781,9 @@ are normal text files interleaved with
 .I roff
 formatting elements.
 .
+The
 .I roff
-languages are powerful enough to support arbitrary computation and
+language is powerful enough to support arbitrary computation and
 supply facilities that encourage their extension.
 .
 The primary such facility is macro definition;
@@ -1859,8 +1864,9 @@ language is Ossanna's \[lq]Troff User's Manual\[rq],
 CSTR\~#54,
 in its 1992 revision by Kernighan.
 .
+The
 .I roff
-languages provide requests,
+language provides requests,
 escape sequences,
 macro definition facilities,
 string variables,
@@ -2029,9 +2035,9 @@ suffix.
 Since
 .I @g@troff
 fills text automatically,
-it is common practice in
+it is common practice in the
 .I roff
-languages to avoid visual composition of text in input files:
+language to avoid visual composition of text in input files:
 the esthetic appeal of the formatted output is what matters.
 .
 Therefore,
@@ -2275,6 +2281,8 @@ trigger the automatic activation of the
 mode.
 .
 .
+.br
+.ne 3v
 .IP \(bu
 Technically,
 having the sequence
@@ -2409,8 +2417,8 @@ by Dale Dougherty and Tim O'Reilly,
 1987,
 Hayden Books.
 .
-This well-regarded text from 1987 brings the reader from a state of no
-knowledge of Unix or text editing
+This well-regarded text brings the reader from a state of no knowledge
+of Unix or text editing
 (if necessary)
 to sophisticated computer-aided typesetting.
 .