If you had compared the OpenBSD man page to that, it would be a more fair comparison.
In any case, the info page is far larger than the already‐large manual page, which I think only further illustrates one of my points, that the software is itself intimidatingly complex.
Raise your hand if good man pages have helped you out of a fubar situation. raises hand
Note that this isn't about it being technically impossible, you can certainly do it, but it isn't the right tool for the job - a dedicated manual reader provides a better UX here (and the failure of GNU info to provide a user friendly experience is, IMO, the reason manpages are abused so much in Linux).
BSDs (and some others) come with variously-named Handbooks. OpenBSD has the aforementioned. FreeBSD has a Handbook. So do DragonFly BSD, NetBSD, and others. They are distinct from the user manuals, which are the reference doco. They are, indeed, hyperlinked. Already.
* OpenBSD FAQ: http://openbsd.org/faq/index.html
* NetBSD Guide: https://netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/
* FreeBSD Handbook: https://freebsd.org/doc/handbook/book.html
* DragonFly BSD Handbook: https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/handbook/
* GhostBSD Handbook: https://wiki.ghostbsd.org/index.php/GhostBSD_User_Handbook
* MicroBSD Handbook: http://damnsmallbsd.org/MicroBSD/handbook/
* OpenIndiana Hipster Handbook: http://docs.openindiana.org/handbook/getting-started/
* old TrueOS User Guide: https://trueos.org/handbook/trueos.html
EDIT: i see some of those are authored in DocBook but still info files can in theory be written in DocBook too. The main focus of my comments here is the end user format and viewer capabilities, not the authoring format (and honestly i'm not a big fan of info format with its hardcoded text formatting).
The tar example is indeed much cleaner.
But it seems to be a bit old ...
"A tar archive is often stored on a magnetic tape, but can be stored equally well on a floppy, CD-ROM, or in a regular disk file"
Not that it hurts much, though.
[0] https://github.com/openbsd/src/blame/f84583fe5d7899ab1504dc1...
OpenBSD does not like bugs :-)
Apache/nginx/whatever versus OpenBSD's httpd.
[a suite of various software] versus OpenBSD's relayd.
iptables vs OpenBSD's pf (that's the "pf" in "pfSense").
OpenSSL vs OpenBSD's libtls.
For example, people often bring up tar as a tool with a less‐than‐intuitive interface. Compare the manual to GNU tar with OpenBSD’s tar:
https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/tar/tar.1.en.html
https://man.openbsd.org/tar.1
Not only does GNU tar have a bewildering array of options that make reading through the manual a chore, it lists (as far as I can tell) only one example, and in a section devoted to explaining the many ways to specify command‐line options to tar. OpenBSD tar has a whole section dedicated to examples (as is typical for OpenBSD); the manual as a whole is clear, concise, and complete.
Another example: GnuPG versus OpenBSD’s signify.
https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/gnupg2/gpg2.1.en.html
There’ve got to be over 100 options in there. And although it helpfully places --sign first (and --clear-sign, and --detach-sign, and --encrypt, and --symmetric, and --store, before it finally gets to --decrypt), let’s be real: anyone who’s not already comfortable with encryption software will be completely intimidated by this manual, which is 175 (!) page‐downs in a 80×24 terminal.
Contrast with signify:
https://man.openbsd.org/signify.1
The description section starts with the four major operations (sign file, verify file, verify many files, generate key), and is again followed by an examples section.
Of course, the OpenBSD tools are much less featureful than the mainstream counterparts. But the reality is that most people, and certainly I myself, need only a few features in day‐to‐day life. Even being a real terminal junkie, I’ve only needed GNU tar specifically once or twice in the last ten years; and when I did, on OpenBSD, it was a mere “pkg_add gtar” away.
OpenBSD has a great self‐contained base system, with elegant tools and useful documentation, and an extensive package collection for when that’s not adequate. I continue to use it because it serves my needs as a primary driver, and the interface is just so gosh darn pleasant to use.