[Groff] groff for old macro packages

[Werner LEMBERG]

Dear friends,


groff 1.16.1 checks whether some UNIX troff macro packages are
installed on the system.  If yes, it creates a small wrapper macro
file (containing a `.so' request which calls this particular macro
package), and it adds a prefix (usually `g') to the groff macro file
names.  Note that these wrappers are broken in the current snapshot
since I've partially removed this code erroneously.

As implemented in 1.16.1, wrappers cause some problems with
multiplatform installations: The wrapper files are installed by
default in the same directory as other macro packages, but this is
incorrect because they are platform-dependent.  Assuming that
/usr/local/share/groff/<version>/tmac contains the
architecture-independent data, wrapper files must be installed in
/usr/local/lib/groff/<version>/tmac.

Instead of fixing this I would like to get rid of these wrappers
completely -- is this really used today?  Wouldn't people rather
expect that calling groff causes groff's incarnations of ms, mm, etc.
macros be used by default?  Is there any advantage?

Opinions, please.


    Werner