Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!unmvax!uokmax!servalan!rmtodd
From: rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aux
Subject: Re: man
Message-ID: <1990Oct12.223848.22890@servalan.uucp>
Date: 12 Oct 90 22:38:48 GMT
References: <6177@ethz.UUCP> <9040@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Lines: 29

jak9213@helios.TAMU.EDU (John Kane) writes:
>They are not only packed, but they are the output from nroff.

>What I would like is the original [nt]roff source files for the man pages.
>Shouldn't be too hard to handle, assuming you have space for them :-)

  Alas, the problem is that AT&T changed their mine on the troff input files
for the man pages.  They now claim that those files are *SOURCE* and thus
can't be had without the holy *SOURCE LICENCE*.  (They didn't used to write
the licencing arrangements this way; the change occured in some version of
SysV.  To the guy who asked how come Sun can ship troff source for the man
pages: SunOS is based on BSD, which in turn is based on AT&T V32, and V32
didn't have this bogus addition to the licence agreement.  I think all SysV
releases R2 or later did have this restriction...)

  Is this braindead?  You bet.  Is there anything that can be done about it,
short of hoping that AT&T changes the licence agreement for SVR4?  Nope.  

>BTW, no one has recommended a replacement for the version of man(1) distributed
>by Apple. I still need on that can look in /usr/man/man* /usr/local/man/man*
>etc.

   Uh, if you look at /usr/bin/man, you'll find that it's a shell script.
You should be able to hack it to look in other places for man files.  
Alternately, you can grab the source for the BSD man command off of uunet
and hack to your heart's content.  
--
Richard Todd	rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu  rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us
"Cancelling a posted message means posting a cancel message."-Maarten Litmaath