As far as manpages being "silly" I don't understand.. I don't know a linux/unix user that doesn't use a manpage on a daily basis...
Now you're the one being silly
.
Your argument against CHM is easily translated to apply to man pages as well. They're not plain text (ever try to view them in notepad?
), most Windows users do not even know what they are (far worse than not wanting to use them), and their portability is just as questionable as CHM when a viewer for the files does not exist as part of the base system.
What I dislike about CHM and man pages has little to do with their merits. Both of them accomplish the function they were designed for. The two, however, lack
familiarity across platforms and offer nothing superior to a web-based approach.
If the documentation authoring program just happens to support additional formats like these, then there's little reason not to generate them. Maintaining seperate sources for a bunch of esoteric formats, though, would ultimately lead to chaos (including poor synchronization of content and some "versions" of the docs being updated more often than others).
Hope that explains my reasoning more clearly.