Move from termcap(5) to terminfo(5)

[Baptiste Daroussin]

Hello everyone,

I can't find any proper rationale in our history (maybe I missed it) which
explains why our ncurses is stuck on using termcap(5) instead of terminfo(5)
Except an argument in the Makefile that builds ncurses:
"Used instead of the hideous read_termcap.c abomination."

Which I do not find really useful.

I would like to make the move from termcap to terminfo which would give us the
bonus to be able to track terminfo sources from upstream aka ncurses and to
add and use tic(1).

Given the very few people that are actually maintaining the termcap database. I
don't think there is a good rationale at keeping our own format (as far as I
know everyone moved to terminfo(5)) and parser.

Without any strong arguments against it I will start working on that move by
next week.

If you have some knowledge you want to share: "be careful about this or that" I
would be more than happy to collect it, to make sure the transition is as smooth
as possible.

Best regards,
Bapt