Symlinked manpages

[Matt Birkholz <birkholz@primenet.com>]

   Cc: debian-user@Pixar.com, bruce@Pixar.com
   Date: Fri, 04 Aug 1995 15:32:45 -0700
   From: Bruce Perens <bruce@Pixar.com>

   > What is wrong with man that it cannot share preformatted manpages between
   > symlinked source manpages?  Maybe it would be easier to fix man (sarcasm
   > intended). [*understatement* intended, rather]

   We then have to lstat() _every_ page, and readlink() it if there is a link,
   when we build the index. I guess it wouldn't slow down the program too much,
   but why bother?

I assumed it would be easier to fix man once than to get package
maintainers to introduce the new files every time a new version is released
by the upstream source.

Easier yet would be to not worry about it, though I am guessing that the
cost of the duplicate, compressed pages is significant.

Matt Birkholz <birkholz@midnight.com.>