From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri May 2 10:59:26 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 998A337B405 for ; Fri, 2 May 2003 10:59:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp02.syd.iprimus.net.au (smtp02.syd.iprimus.net.au [210.50.76.52]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A582143FA3 for ; Fri, 2 May 2003 10:59:25 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tim@robbins.dropbear.id.au) Received: from dilbert.robbins.dropbear.id.au (210.50.32.7) by smtp02.syd.iprimus.net.au (7.0.012) id 3E8A16000057F708; Sat, 3 May 2003 03:59:22 +1000 Received: by dilbert.robbins.dropbear.id.au (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 5C958C90D; Sat, 3 May 2003 03:59:11 +1000 (EST) Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 03:59:11 +1000 From: Tim Robbins To: "Daniel C. Sobral" Message-ID: <20030503035911.A92273@dilbert.robbins.dropbear.id.au> References: <20030502171957.28624.qmail@laurel.tmseck.homedns.org> <3EB2AC00.7070307@tcoip.com.br> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i In-Reply-To: <3EB2AC00.7070307@tcoip.com.br>; from dcs@tcoip.com.br on Fri, May 02, 2003 at 02:33:52PM -0300 cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org cc: Thomas Seck Subject: Re: HEADS UP: bzip2(1) compression for manpages, Groff and Texinfo docs X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 17:59:27 -0000 On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 02:33:52PM -0300, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: > Thomas Seck wrote: > > * Garrett Wollman (wollman@lcs.mit.edu): > > > > > >>The correct answer for one of these has no implications on any of > >>the others. > > > > > > I am just a user but I'll second that. > > > > Am I the only one who thinks that some people are on a "kill the GNU, > > kill it now, no matter the cost" trip again? > > > > I can see no benefit in switching to bzip2 other than eliminating GPL'ed > > software. No, I do not think disk space is an issue nowadays. > > If two programs do the same thing, but one is GPL and the other is not, > the other one is clearly preferable for FreeBSD. > > As far as _ports_ are concerned, it is irrelevant. As far as the _base_ > system is concerned, the less we depend on GPL, the better. > > The "sole benefit" you see is clearly enough of a benefit. There _are_ > good reasons to reduce dependency on GPL, y'know. gzip is trivially replaceable by minigzip in this case. It makes little sense to talk about replacing a GPL'd piece of code with a non-GPL'd piece of code in this context anyway: we are using a GPL'd man utility by (someone's) choice when the 4.4BSD implementation is adequate, and we are using GNU groff. Using bzip2 instead of gzip will not let us format manual pages without GNU tools. The real issue here is whether bzip2 compresses manual pages significantly better than gzip, and whether the speed penalty is worth the space saved. Let's not get distracted by licenses. Tim