Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 22:46:27 +0200 From: "Simon L. Nielsen" <simon@nitro.dk> To: "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org> Cc: Michael Carr <sphaleotas@blueyonder.co.uk> Subject: Re: RMS says: "Use BSD, for goodness sake!" Message-ID: <20030626204627.GE1275@nitro.dk> In-Reply-To: <20030626172910.N98477@hub.org> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20030625214311.00e5e240@localhost> <20030626010357.J508@hub.org> <20030626110336.GW34365@iconoplex.co.uk> <xzp1xxg8u2v.fsf@dwp.des.no> <20030626172910.N98477@hub.org>
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[-- Attachment #1 --] On 2003.06.26 17:32:37 -0300, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Dag-Erling [iso-8859-1] Smørgrav wrote: > > Potentially stupid questions, but ... > > > > bc - an undergrad could re-implement based on man page > > > > With a good arbitrary-precision math library, yes. The one we have > > happens to be GPLed. > > Is there anything at the operating system level that uses/requires bc, or > could it be moved to ports ... ? Like, I use it, but its a command line > tool, not something I've seen used in scripts ... Like awk it's part of IEEE Std 1003.1, so I think it would be a bad idea to remove it unless there is a very good reason. > > > less - re-implementable quite quickly > > > > You might be surprised... > > ... but any reason why its part of hte main system instead of just put > into ports? Because it's very nice to have? While I do think it would be preferable with BSD (or similar) licened utils, I don't think there is any reason for a crusade to remove GNU/GPL utils just because of their license, if there is no other compareable util that can be imported instead. -- Simon L. Nielsen [-- Attachment #2 --] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE++1uj8kocFXgPTRwRAosFAJ4r1YUUnQY//A1x5+KyPBr8BmEJGQCfWfIT Biy0ff8dp63go7ucibFOmrI= =tFwI -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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