+1 ᐧ On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 6:39 PM Larry McVoy 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 >