31–40 of 67 posts
In which the fundamental problem with not paying for your open source software is revealed.
This is a fundamental problem with open source software.
The fact that someone might possibly be able to do something about it is a fundamental feature of open source software.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well... manpages are still very much alive and widely used, and they're so prevalent that moving to something new is a nearly ridiculous requirement. Half the things with manpages in the wild are probably themselves not maintained. Now you have two problems. We can move to something new, but getting everyone to agree on what that is, then implementing and maintaining it... isn't that more work than just maintaining t…
Why not format manpages as markdown? As a consumer you wouldn't need to care about the format behind the scene and the format is already well known by programmers, there are plenty of libraries that solve can read markdown and plenty of people who know it.
GNU Groff is terrible and the only reason it hasn't been replaced with a superior implementation is that all the better versions are politically incompatible with GNU. It's no surprise they're having a hard time finding someone interested in effectively code-laundering and slapping a GPL on it.
I think the obsession with "being maintained" is somewhat unhealthy phenomenon in the FOSS world. If the code works and does what you want then why would it need constant fiddling and consistent stream of releases?
I'm going to be frank: why? I've recently looked into making my own manpage and it's a pretty old looking system. The docs are not really clear but using some examples and trial and error I got there. My point is though, why does it need a maintainer? The system feels old enough to get deprecated instead of keeping it alive, let alone bring out new releases. I haven't spent more than a day working with groff though,…
Replacing man pages because 'they look old' is a terribly stupid idea. How about we replace them because there is something better? Or because they no longer fill a need? Things that are old and work are not to be messed with. Frankly, if you don't get that, I don't want you, or anyone else who thinks like you, making decisions about any UNIX I might work with. I lament the poor documentation on Linux, and OSX, and I…
I fully agree, and it's not what I meant to say. What I meant is writing new pages in a newer language (insert random lightweight text based format, preferably one where the 'see also' part is linkable) and groff is simply deprecated and supported as well. Since there is currently support, why do we need a maintainer? That is my question.
> Things that are old and work are not to be messed with.
Agreed, so what's the maintainer going to do?
> Maybe we don't need groff to prepare them, but we need man pages.
Once again, I agree. Sorry if I sounded like man pages are unnecessary, that is not what I meant.
I'm going to be frank: why? I've recently looked into making my own manpage and it's a pretty old looking system. The docs are not really clear but using some examples and trial and error I got there. My point is though, why does it need a maintainer? The system feels old enough to get deprecated instead of keeping it alive, let alone bring out new releases. I haven't spent more than a day working with groff though,…
Well... manpages are still very much alive and widely used, and they're so prevalent that moving to something new is a nearly ridiculous requirement. Half the things with manpages in the wild are probably themselves not maintained. Now you have two problems. We can move to something new, but getting everyone to agree on what that is, then implementing and maintaining it... isn't that more work than just maintaining t…
> > Replacing man pages because 'they look old' is a terribly stupid idea.
> I fully agree, and it's not what I meant to say. What I meant is writing new pages in a newer language (insert random lightweight text based format, preferably one where the 'see also' part is linkable) and groff is simply deprecated and supported as well. Since there is currently support, why do we need a maintainer? That is my question.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd limit it to FOSS that people don't pay for (directly or indirectly). When money is changing hands with the expectation that software is maintained in good working order, you won't see abandonment like this. But when nobody is paying or getting paid, maintenance stops, regardless of whether the software is a key component of crypto on the internet or a fundamental part of the documentation of most Linux installati…
oh you mean things like windows XP which people have paid for? I rest my case.
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markdown isn't semantic. roff macros allow one to clearly specify that function arguments (Fa) and command line flags (Fl) are different things, even if they render similarly.
Is this really needed in a manpage, though ? AFAIK manpages are ASCII document created with any variation of troff/nroff/groff and piped into less -s. There is no need for any semantical distinction if display is the same, since the best interaction you can have is searching for something.
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If nobody is maintaining it, how can you tell it doesn't currently have any important bugs? Remember that the worst bugs in the last couple of years have been in the code that nobody was looking at.
Some people must have reported bugs since 2013. If not, then either it's unused or bug free?
I haven't compared this with upstream though.