From: Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>
To: Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>
Cc: segaloco <segaloco@protonmail.com>,
The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: [TUHS] Re: Project Idea: The UNIX Programmer's Manual: Heritage Edition
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2023 21:09:51 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAC20D2MEqQiiP5Y9aW6pRsEiF2NxM4wkrM42BkAVzha9d48t+w@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20230919233925.GB28844@mcvoy.com>
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+1
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On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 6:39 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
> One of the projects I thought I'd do in my retirement, but haven't done,
> was to provide man page / paper as in "a paper", not tree paper, versions
> of all the GNU info stuff. I could not be less thrilled with info, yeah
> there are ways to deal, but it just isn't as good (to me) as how Unix did
> docs. It's like they want to force emacs on us to read docs.
>
> I'd start with groff.
>
> So I'm a little off topic but if people wanted to work on that, I'd be
> up for that project. It's not as big as what you are saying but it's
> pretty big, I think we just start with something, see if we can get
> debian/ubuntu to pick it up, lather, rinse repeat. In fact if we
> just get the groff project to pick up our stuff, all the distros will
> get that eventually.
>
> The one drawback I see is people might want to provide info and man
> docs. My personal preference is that the info stuff goes away but I
> have learned I don't get what I want. So there may be a period of
> time where both need to be maintained.
>
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 08:32:15PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote:
> > I haven't known when or how to bring up this project idea, but figure I
> might as well start putting feelers out since my Dragon Quest project is
> starting to slow down and I might focus back on UNIX manual stuff.
> >
> > So something painfully missing from my and I'm sure plenty of other
> folks' libraries is a nice, modern paper UNIX manual that takes the past
> few decades into consideration. The GNU project, BSDs, etc. ship manpages
> of course, and there's the POSIX manpages, but I'm a sucker for a good
> print manual. Something I'm thinking of producing as a "deliverable" of
> sorts from my documentation research is a new-age UNIX manual, derived as
> closely as possible from the formal UNIX documentation lineages (so
> Research, SysV, and BSD pages), but:
> >
> > 1. Including subsequent POSIX requirements
> > 2. Including an informational section in each page with a little
> history and some notes about current implementations, if applicable. This
> would include notes about "dead on the vine" stuff like things plucked from
> the CB-UNIX, MERT/PG, and PWB lines. The history part could even be a
> separate book, that way the manual itself could stay tight and focused.
> This would also be a good place for luminaries to provide reflections on
> their involvement in given pieces.
> >
> > One of the main questions that I have in mind is what the legal
> landscape of producing such a thing would entail. At the very least, to
> actually call it a UNIX Programmer's Manual, it would probably need to pass
> some sort of compliance with the materials The Open Group publishes. That
> said, the ownership of the IP as opposed to the trademarks is a little less
> certain, so I would be a bit curious who all would be involved in
> specifically getting copyright approval to publish anything that happened
> the commercial line after the early 80s, so like new text produced after
> 1982. I presume anything covered by the Caldera license at least could be
> published at-cost, but not for a profit (which I'm not looking for anyway.)
> >
> > Additionally, if possible, I'd love to run down some authorship
> information and make sure folks who wrote stuff up over time are properly
> credited, if not on each page ala OWNER at least in a Acknowledgements
> section in the front.
> >
> > As far as production, I personally would want to do a run with a couple
> of different cover styles, comb bound, maybe one echoing the original Bell
> Laboratories UNIX User's Manual-style cover complete with Bell logo,
> another using the original USENIX Beastie cover, etc. but that also then
> calls into question more copyrights to coordinate, especially with the way
> the Bell logo is currently owned, that could get complicated.
> >
> > Anywho, anyone know of any such efforts like this? If I actually got
> such a project going in earnest, would folks find themselves interested in
> such a publication? In any case I do intend to start on a typesetter
> sources version of this project sometime in the next year or so, but
> ideally I would want it to blossom into something that could result in some
> physical media. This idea isn't even half-baked yet by the way, so just
> know I don't have a roadmap in place, it's just something I see being a
> cool potential project over the coming years.
> >
> > - Matt G.
>
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy Retired to fishing
> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat
>
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2023-09-20 2:10 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 28+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2023-09-19 20:32 [TUHS] " segaloco via TUHS
2023-09-19 23:39 ` [TUHS] " Larry McVoy
2023-09-20 1:26 ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-09-20 1:30 ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-09-20 14:57 ` Warner Losh
2023-09-20 15:40 ` Dan Cross
2023-09-20 2:09 ` Clem Cole [this message]
2023-09-20 2:25 ` Adam Thornton
2023-09-20 2:50 ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-09-20 19:56 ` Larry McVoy
2023-09-20 20:52 ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-09-20 22:31 ` Dave Horsfall
2023-09-21 4:09 ` Wesley Parish
2023-09-21 13:08 ` John P. Linderman
2023-09-21 0:26 ` Marc Donner
2023-09-21 3:06 ` Adam Thornton
2023-09-21 3:30 ` G. Branden Robinson
2023-09-21 3:48 ` Phil Budne
2023-09-21 13:37 ` Theodore Ts'o
2023-09-20 21:15 ` Alan Coopersmith
2023-09-21 3:49 ` G. Branden Robinson
2023-09-19 23:43 ` Adam Thornton
2023-09-20 13:23 ` Chet Ramey
2023-09-20 14:12 ` Alejandro Colomar (man-pages)
2023-09-19 23:47 ` KenUnix
2023-09-20 6:16 ` Jeremy C. Reed
2023-09-20 7:19 ` markus schnalke
2023-09-21 15:53 ` Kenneth Goodwin
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