regarding your comments on proposed media type text/troff' toInformational RFC

[Larry Masinter]

How about removing the "process" parameter and instead suggesting that
instructions be included in the source document, in a comment,
explaining how to process the document, including possible
recommended command lines, environment variables, preprocessors,
warnings.

Make it explicit that there is no standard format for such
instructions, and that receivers of text/troff documents should
not attempt to try to automatically interpret such instructions
because instructions might vary widely in format, language,
and syntax, or contain preconditions or warnings or other
information.

It would even be reasonable to suggest, to the creators
of text/troff content, the complete set of information
that would be required in such instructions, and even
some useful guidelines about how to write them in a way
that others will have good luck interpreting them.
But by not creating a standard syntax, you will avoid
encouraging writers of receivers to build automatic
launch information.

Larry