Hi folks, I wanted to solicit opinions on a trim-down and simplification of the groff build, source tree, and distribution archive.
I'd like to get rid of the "old fonts" directory that grops(1) can be configured to find. Here's what that is, according to its man page. Old fonts groff versions 1.19.2 and earlier contained descriptions of a slightly different set of the 35 Adobe core fonts; the differences are mainly the lack of a Euro glyph and a reduced set of kerning pairs. For backwards compatibility, these old font descriptions are also installed in the /usr/local/share/groff/ 1.23.0/oldfont/devps directory. To use them, make sure that grops finds the fonts before the default system fonts (with the same names): either give grops the -F command-line option, $ groff -Tps -P-F -P/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/oldfont ... or add the directory to groff’s font and device description search path environment variable, $ GROFF_FONT_PATH=/usr/local/share/groff/1.23.0/oldfont \ groff -Tps ... when the command runs. groff 1.19.2 was released on or about 2005-09-04, per "Changelog.119". If I look at, say, one thread[1] in an HP Forum, someone appears to quote the "HP Customer Support - Retired Products" page as saying, "Typically, HP stops supporting consumer products after ten years. Read the policy and find out if your HP device is on the list." That text is no longer in evidence at that page[2], however the list of retired products there is obviously incomplete, with many models of HP LaserJet not even listed. Given that the devices that shipped with internal copies of the PostScript level 2 base 35 fonts were already "old" in 2005, and over 15 years have passed since then, it seems unlikely to me that such printers are still in service. And if they are, the "old" font metrics can be obtained from a historical release of groff or from Git by simply checking out the tree at a point before we delete them, if we do so. Does anyone object to this and have a use case to offer? Regards, Branden [1] https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printing-Errors-or-Lights-Stuck-Print-Jobs/need-list-of-End-of-Life-End-of-Support-EOSL-of-ALL-HP/td-p/6997512 [2] https://support.hp.com/us-en/retired-products
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