BSD-licensed Text-Processing Tools

Merge the latest version of mdocml (ISC licensed) from the ports into the FreeBSD system base, and configure it as a replacement for the GNU roff (groff) tool set (this would aditionally involve a rewrite of man). There are FreeBSD replacements for sort and diff in ports (also from a GSoC project), but they are lacking features from their GNU counterparts. I will pick up and complete these, possibly borrowing/porting from one of the other BSD projects when possible. Benchmarking the new tools and ensuring they scale appropriately when compared to their GNU counterparts is highly desired, and I would like to try to confirm the mdocml author's assertion that it should be noticeably faster than groff.

A feature-complete (including wide character support) BSD-licensed replacement for:

• man, diff, sort, sdiff, diff3
• Integration of mdocml into FreeBSD base, completely replacing groff
• Integration of above tools into FreeBSD base
• Benchmark comparisons of above tools to previous implementations

* Identify use of man, diff, sort, sdiff, or diff3 in make scripts, build world, etc. * Performance analysis toolset

• May 24 - May 26: Licensing/Cost Analysis
  • Identify existing tools with a BSD-compatible license (ISC, 2/3/4 Clause BSD, Public Domain?). Contact respective authors about possibility of changing existing code to 2 Clause BSD licensing.
  • Brief analysis for above candidates of effort required to port existing code to FreeBSD versus scratch re-write.
  • (begin personal vacation)

• June 1 - 12: diff
  • (vacation ends)
  • complete diff replacement/port

June 13-15: Diff Testing::

• Verify feature compatibility
• Exhaustive debugging
• Performance-measuring, optimization if necessary

June 16 - June 21: sdiff:: * Complete sdiff replacement/port June 13-15: sdiff Testing::

• Verify feature compatibility
• Exhaustive testing (mergemaster)
• Performance-measuring, optimization if necessary

June 26 - July 16: mdocml:: * Merge mdocml into base. * Identify and replace scripts for compiling man pages with new mandoc tools « BR » * GSoC Mid-term *

July 17 - July 19: man:: * Complement prior man replacement * Ensure compatibility with mandoc

• July 20 - July 26: sort

* Complete sort replacement/port July 27-July 30: sort Testing::

• Verify feature compatibility
• Regression tests
• Performance-measuring, optimization if necessary

July 31 - August 9: diff3 :: * Complete diff3 replacement/port August 9 - August 12: sort Testing::

• Verify feature compatibility
• Regression tests
• Performance-measuring, optimization if necessary

August 9 - August 16: Closing Time:: * Documentation * Compile performance presentation * Test, test, test