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IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
00018831003.1(2024)/Issue8Shell and Utilitiespublic2024-12-05 17:09
ReporterLove4Boobies Assigned To 
PrioritynormalSeverityCommentTypeEnhancement Request
Status ClosedResolutionRejected 
NameBogdan Barbu
Organization
User Reference
Sectiontroff
Page NumberN/A
Line NumberN/A
Interp Status---
Final Accepted Text
Summary0001883: Standardization of troff
Descriptiontroff has been an integral part of Unix since the early days, widely used for typesetting and document preparation. Most POSIX-compliant systems already include troff or its derivatives (e.g., groff), making it a de facto standard in practice. A standardized troff would ensure portability of documents and scripts across POSIX-compliant systems. Including it in POSIX would formalize its behavior, reducing fragmentation between implementation. It's well-documented, stable, and has decades of community experience, making it a low-risk candidate for standardization. Its use with other standard tools (e.g., sed, awk) complements the UNIX philosophy of modularity.

One use case for troff would be to produce man pages. POSIX defines all the tools required to write portable software and to read manuals but no portable way to create man pages. I'm also pretty sure the Austin Group uses it :)
Desired ActionBefore making a more formal proposal, it should be discussed whether this is outside the scope of POSIX or not.
TagsNo tags attached.

Activities

Guy Harris

2024-12-04 23:08

reporter   bugnote:0006983

> One use case for troff would be to produce man pages. ... I'm also pretty sure the Austin Group uses it :)

Unless they use mandoc: https://mandoc.bsd.lv

Don Cragun

2024-12-05 17:09

manager   bugnote:0006990

Although it would be in scope, we do not know of a group that would be willing to spend the time needed to set up, sponsor, and lead an nroff/troff working group to prepare a specification for these utilities. Without the output of such a group being available to standardize, we do not believe that we can accept a proposal to add these utilities to the standard. If you do have a complete specification that is ready to be standardized, please submit a separate bug report for consideration. Until a complete specification is available, this bug is rejected.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2024-12-04 22:58 Love4Boobies New Issue
2024-12-04 22:58 Love4Boobies Name => Bogdan Barbu
2024-12-04 22:58 Love4Boobies Section => troff
2024-12-04 22:58 Love4Boobies Page Number => N/A
2024-12-04 22:58 Love4Boobies Line Number => N/A
2024-12-04 23:08 Guy Harris Note Added: 0006983
2024-12-05 17:09 Don Cragun Interp Status => ---
2024-12-05 17:09 Don Cragun Note Added: 0006990
2024-12-05 17:09 Don Cragun Status New => Closed
2024-12-05 17:09 Don Cragun Resolution Open => Rejected