Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 16:37:55 -0400 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> To: "David O'Brien" <obrien@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: HEADS UP: tar -l is now (intentionally) broken. Message-ID: <20040803203755.GA9940@online.fr> In-Reply-To: <20040803182247.GA92036@dragon.nuxi.com> References: <410F28E1.8080105@freebsd.org> <20040803182247.GA92036@dragon.nuxi.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
David O'Brien said on Aug 3, 2004 at 11:22:47: > On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 10:55:45PM -0700, Tim Kientzle wrote: > > I will consider > > suggestions for a corresponding environment variable > > for GNU behavior (GNULY_CORRECT?). > > 'GNU_ME_HARDER'. For those who missed the reference, Stallman's original term was POSIX_ME_HARDER http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=DJM.91Aug29122459%40vortex.eng.umd.edu and he changed it, he says, under pressure from a prudish POSIX committee member (but some programs still honour it...) I'd like to see the GNU behaviour stay the default, just for POLA reasons (especially since data loss could be involved: it's bad enough losing data by typing x when you meant c, which is rather common, let's not put in additional pitfalls). Also, commercial unix is a dwindling species, so practically all tar users are used to the GNU version anyway. POSIX purists probably define POSIXLY_CORRECT in their .*shrc files already. And it's worth noting that minor incompatibilities like this just serve to annoy new users (which usually means users from linux-land). For example, it's annoying that BSD man can't read a manpage by specifying the full path to a filename (eg, man ./foo.1). But I realise many BSD oldtimers' notion of "the right thing" is different from mine... Rahul
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20040803203755.GA9940>