[henryprecheur]

The main reasons for replacing groff were:

1. Groff is buggy

2. Groff is slow to compile & execute

3. Groff is not BSD licensed

mandoc has none of these problems. If you want a "generic" roff system, groff is available as a package.

According to http://mdocml.bsd.lv/

> groff amounts to over 5 MB of source code, most of which is C++ and all of which is GPL. It runs slowly, produces uncertain output, and varies in operation from system to system. mdocml strives to fix this (respectively small, C, ISC-licensed, fast and regular).

[mhd]

Those are reason why you wouldn't use groff, it still doesn't explain why – if you're taking the effort – you're not building a proper roff replacement, but some subset bastard program. And then hack stuff like tbl into the main executable. (Never mind that there's Plan 9 roff or the heirloom version)

I get it, nobody really seems to use non-man roff anymore. Still, subsetting and reinventing the wheel (partially) seems a odd solution for this.

[protomyth]

Resources, need, and code audits are the reason to build a simple tool that does the job you want.

[tedunangst]

Why is reducing the scope of the problem in order to simplify the solution so odd?