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[Groff] new groff release
From: |
Werner LEMBERG |
Subject: |
[Groff] new groff release |
Date: |
Tue, 04 May 2004 14:38:10 +0200 (CEST) |
I'll release a new version of groff (1.19.1) in the next few days.
Bernd Warken has told me that Debian (and other distributions) are
reluctant to update since groff apparently depends on recent texinfo
versions. Is this true? IMHO this would a bad policy for the
following reasons:
. groff doesn't have a `stable' and `unstable' branch. Fixes for,
say, 1.18.1 are in 1.19, and fixes for 1.19 will be in 1.19.1.
The changes applied to groff are extremely conservative (except
color support for TTY devices which can be easily deactivated). I
increase the minor number only if significant changes or additions
have been applied; the major number will be increased for
fundamental modifications (a Unicode groff will become 2.0).
. groff.info can be read without problems using older `info'
versions. To be completely independent, just distribute groff.pdf
with the groff package!
Bernd has sent me a special version of his `groffer' package which
fixes bugs in 1.18.1. I could easily release 1.18.2 which would be
completely identical to 1.18.1 + Bernd's groffer changes. Does this
make sense? Would e.g. the Debian people actually update from 1.18.1
to 1.18.2?
Werner
PS: Currently, groff.pdf can be built only with texinfo 2.6 due to
severe bugs in texinfo 2.7 which haven't yet fixed even in the
CVS.
PPS: Don't ask when a Unicode groff can be expected :-( Volunteers are
highly welcome to extend groff from 8bit to 32bit input
characters.
- [Groff] new groff release,
Werner LEMBERG <=