Re: [bug #63757] [gropdf] doesn't handle "papersize" directive as other drivers do

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi Ben,

At 2023-02-06T21:20:39-0800, Ben Wong wrote:
> Thank you for the thoughtful consideration of my bug report. I had
> intended this report for Debian which allows additional flexibility by
> offering an optional setting for the system-wide default paper size.
> This is similar to the compile time option that groff already has, but
> is evaluated at runtime, meaning the same groff binary can be used
> internationally.  Additionally, this makes switching to groff easier
> since, if one is already using Debian, /etc/papersize has probably
> already been configured correctly for other typesetting systems or
> printing.

Indeed.  I don't think you were wrong to file the issue against the
Debian package at all.

> Of course, no matter what the system administrator sets /etc/papersize
> to, the user's personal preference is always respected. This does not
> take away any functionality. It only overrides the compiled-in
> default.

Right.

> While I think the ability to have a site-wide default for all users on
> a host without recompilation would be beneficial to everyone who uses
> groff, I do not expect the groff project to accept patches I designed
> for the Debian system. I apologize for the confusion.

You caused no confusion.  :)  In addition to being a groff developer,
I'm a Debian Developer as well (although minimally active in the latter
role), and monitor the groff source package bug list[1] to keep myself
abreast of issues and problems experienced by the user community.  The
package maintainer, Colin Watson, is also periodically active on the
groff development list.

Thus there is good bilateral communication between upstream groff and
the Debian packager.  We have a similar good relationship with groff's
packager for OpenBSD, Ingo Schwarze.  Both Colin and Ingo are committers
to the groff Git repository.

I think there were two distinguishable issues in your report, one that
is not a good fit for groff upstream, but the other which may well be.
I still hope we'll hear from gropdf author Deri James about the latter.

To summarize, you did nothing wrong!  Thank you for attention to groff's
quality, both as a GNU project and to its Debian packaging.

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/src:groff

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