man -t odd page size

[Warren Block]

On Thu, 23 Oct 2008, Gonzalo Nemmi wrote:
> On Thursday 23 October 2008 12:12:23 am Matt Emmerton wrote:
>>
>> Perhaps, but since the roots of *BSD are in the USA, letter was a sensible
>> default (at the time).
>
> That's a fact and I couldn't agree more with your assertion.
>
>> Now, if a collection of FreeBSD members from ISO 216 adopting companies
>> wanted to figure out a way to put "default paper size" into some kind of
>> locale option that man (and other tools) could use, then that would go a
>> long way towards reducing the pain.
>
> Now, and taking into consideration your 100% correct assumption and the fact
> that "letter was a sensible default (at the time)" wouldn't it make a lot
> more sense to do it the other way around?

Given history and POLA, probably not.

> I mean .. What about figuring out a way to put "default paper size = letter"
> into some kind of locale option that man (and other tools) could use and turn
> the ISO 216 standard into the default option?

Having a new default that is different from the historical one can be a 
problem for legacy stuff.

> I don't work for an ISO 216 adopting company, and hopefully I never will, I
> don't speak for them, and hopefully I never will ... I'm just a citizen of
> the long list of countries who adhere to the ISO 216 and I'd really like to
> see FreeBSD apps slowly turn to use ISO 216 by default (or at least provide a
> painless flag like -pa4 or the likes) instead of non-standard formats which
> only benefit a portion of it's user base, putting the rest of us to stretchs
> in order to get optimal results.

Don't mistake the lack of a feature like global page size settings for a 
refusal.  Maybe it's hard to do, or there just hasn't been enough need 
to motivate someone to implement it.

The strength of open source software is that users can make improvements 
they need.  So consider this your opportunity to help.

A good start would just be determining which programs need to be 
modified.  A check for similar work in other operating systems would be 
very useful.  Finally, a proposal for the way to implement the change, 
and maybe even patches.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA