Re: [Groff] Tiny make patch: avoid Netpbm dependency

[Werner LEMBERG]

> ...and no chance to take advantage of git(1) compressing it's
> blobs, which is what i was indeed referring to?  The bitmap seems
> to be unchanged from the first check-in until today (and i can't
> imagine that someone wants to change that one, too).

It is a very good principle to put only real source files into a git
repository, and no generated files.  I will continue so.  My successor
might make a different decision, though.

> It is maybe worth thinking about doing so for GNU Troff, as it is
> the only step that is missing to have `VCS-checkout ==
> distribution-to-go', which seems to me is a desirable thing;

No, it isn't, IMHO.  For example, many people don't have `makeinfo'
installed to build the info files, or `autoconf' to generate the
configure script.  People who check out from the git *must* have all
the necessary tools.  In case you really can't manage to install the
netpbm tools (something which I rather doubt), it's still possible to
do

  touch gnu.eps

to get an empty file and the build process should finish successfully.

> It seems more and more projects do not even provide release balls,
> but require packagers to do that work for them; [...]

I very much dislike this idea.  Fortunately, since groff is a GNU
project, we don't go this route.

> E.g., if i would be a MOM user i surely would have loved to get
> the new thing at a glance,

You can do so, since Peter distributes MOM separately, exactly for
this reason.


    Werner