Re: [groff] Loss of MSVC support

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Doug McIlroy <address@hidden>
> Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2019 16:00:13 -0500
> 
> I run groff on windows a lot, but via cygwin, which emulates
> Unix. I am inclined to think that if you like the groff toolset,
> you are likely to want other Unix capability, too, and thus
> gravitate towards facilities like cygwin.

Most Unix utilities are available in native Windows ports as well.

The disadvantage of Cygwin is that it's a kind-of catholic marriage:
you cannot easily make it collaborate with native Windows programs.
E.g., it insists on not recognizing Windows CRLF EOL format, it has
its own ideas about file ACL interpretation, etc.  If you don't have
to run native programs, then you should be fine with Cygwin, but not
everyone is in this position.

> I take it that Keith uses groff on bare Windows without a
> Unix veneer. If many people work in that mode, we should not
> abandon them.

I certainly do use the native Windows port of Groff every day.  As for
others, here's a data point: the port of 1.22.4 I've put on the
ezwinports site 5 days ago was downloaded 18 times since then.  That's
quite a few for a tool such as Groff which has a somewhat limited
scope on Windows.