Re: [Groff] CVS Build Problem

[Jim Reid]

On Apr 27, 2005, at 02:44, Keith Marshall wrote:
> I'm almost sorry I bothered to mention Jim Reid at all; I had 
> forgotten what
> an irascible character he is, and I felt rather disinclined to even 
> grace
> this drivel with a response.

Personal attacks and insults, especially unfounded ones, have no place 
in this or any other list. And you then have the gall to whine about 
not  "contributing something constructive"?

> I very much doubt if anyone changed groff's build/install procedure 
> with any
> intent to make it in any way Linux specific;

Fact: somebody *did* change the build/install stuff. It used to work on 
 BSD/OS. It had done so since at least 1996. Now it doesn't. To some 
extent, this specific discussion is now moot because BSD/OS is dead. 
That said, the wider point about trying to keep groff from falling into 
a Linux-only ghetto remains valid.

I never claimed that whatever changes were made had the *intent* of 
making things Linux specific. However the changes have had that impact. 
[As have most of the examples of feature creep in recent groff releases 
BTW.] This is rather sad because James Clark's initial development 
platform for groff in the early 90's would have been something BSD-ish. 
Besides if Linux is now the main (only?) development platform, it's 
inevitable groff will inherit Linux-isms, either deliberately or 
subconsciously. "If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem 
looks like a nail."

> If there is a problem with BSD/OS 4.2, it isn't because of any effort 
> to make
> groff Linux specific; its simply down to a shortage of developers 
> testing on
> the BSD platform.  Groff is free software, Jim.  It comes without any
> warranty of any kind, including suitability for any particular 
> purpose.  If
> it doesn't work for you, you are free to modify it so that it does.

I did and found that an unrewarding and frustrating experience. So I 
gave up. This is not good for me or, more importantly, for the groff 
user base.

> Instead  of just complaining, why not fix the problem, and contribute 
> something
> constructive?

I'm not complaining: read my previous posting. I  simply confirmed that 
the difficulties I had were on the same OS platform and that my 
attempts to solve them got nowhere. Even though that response was not 
positive, it was constructive.