Re: [groff] mom: blockquotes lose indent across page breaks

[Peter Schaffter]

On Tue, Dec 18, 2018, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> Peter Schaffter wrote on Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 08:55:04PM -0500:
> 
> > I've updated mom-2.4.tar.gz on mom's website,
> 
> Never change tarballs after they are released.

> That causes bad trouble to downstream packagers:

The tarballs aren't, and never have been, for packagers.  The
"distinct from groff" nature of mom development means that any
"packaged" version will be the one from contrib/mom when groff
is built.  Tarballs are posted so users can update mom without
having to pull groff from the development branch.  The two (i.e.
contrib/mom and the tarballs) are always in synch, but packagers are
not expected to use the tarballs, and indeed, none have.

Every once in a while, as presently, mom presents a bug whose fix
is so small that it doesn't warrant a version change but does need
to be made available to run-of-the-mill users immediately.  A patch
applied to version N.N rather than a release of version N.N-x, as it
were.  In such cases--extremely rare--the patch is applied to the
development branch of groff/contrib/mom and the "users' tarball"
is silently updated.  Since no one is packaging mom for shipment
separately from groff, concerns about downstream packaging aren't
relevant.

Mom began life entirely separate of groff because of groff's
slow release cycle.  I got a couple of requests from Debianites
wanting to package her, and a proposal from Werner that she become
part of groff.  I chose the latter despite the headache of the
groff-packaged version perpetually lagging behind the latest mom
release, a problem solved by posting the tarballs.  Though mildly
unconventional, this pragmatic solution has worked without a hitch
for over ten years.

-- 
Peter Schaffter
http://www.schaffter.ca