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Date:      Tue, 15 Jul 2014 19:40:04 -0700
From:      <dteske@FreeBSD.org>
To:        "'Benjamin Kaduk'" <bjkfbsd@gmail.com>, <dteske@freebsd.org>
Cc:        svn-src-head@freebsd.org, svn-src-all@freebsd.org, src-committers@freebsd.org, 'Bryan Drewery' <bdrewery@freebsd.org>
Subject:   RE: svn commit: r268641 - head/usr.sbin/service
Message-ID:  <013701cfa09f$3ffad0c0$bff07240$@FreeBSD.org>
In-Reply-To: <CAJ5_RoAP9_VVMHSmyzYbZu_B5JOscJi_z3-i8R=EjCzKY3rmAA@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <201407150218.s6F2Itj8044531@svn.freebsd.org>	<53C56BE9.9050304@FreeBSD.org>	<20140715191553.GA31990@dft-labs.eu>	<011a01cfa09b$928b4710$b7a1d530$@FreeBSD.org> <CAJ5_RoAP9_VVMHSmyzYbZu_B5JOscJi_z3-i8R=EjCzKY3rmAA@mail.gmail.com>

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=20

=20

From: Benjamin Kaduk [mailto:bjkfbsd@gmail.com]=20
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 7:24 PM
To: dteske@freebsd.org
Cc: Bryan Drewery; svn-src-head@freebsd.org; svn-src-all@freebsd.org; =
src-committers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: svn commit: r268641 - head/usr.sbin/service

=20

On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 10:13 PM, <dteske@freebsd.org =
<mailto:dteske@freebsd.org> > wrote:


Blatting out the environment feels rude and non-UNIXy.

UNIX programs can, and should expect at a minimum to
be able to interrogate the environment they are running
within -- destroying all vestiges of that environment purely
for the sake of saying "it's clean" seems counter to the
UNIX pathos.

=20

=20

I'm not sure I can square this sense of "non-UNIXy" with the =
long-standing documented behavior of cron to only set SHELL, PATH, =
LOGNAME, and HOME.  Surely cron is Unixy...

=20

[Devin Teske]=20

Last time I checked, cron did not define the UNIX standard.

That is to say, that simply because cron decides to export

those exact 4 variables does not mean that all of UNIX

should never export any other variable.

=20

I define non-UNIXy as chicanery that makes working in a

POSIX environment more difficult. In this particular case,

the issue is that should I want to find out what type of

terminal my *terminal* program is running on, I shouldn't

have to fight the system to determine the answer. Rather,

the system should (unless it has damn-good reason) freely

offer information that divulges what environment the

program is running in.

=20

I am not making the argument that boot-scripts should

have access to every environment variable in the parent

namespace, but I am arguing that standard UNIX idioms

such as $TERM _should_ be provided (not providing them

is imho non-UNIX like).

--=20

Devin




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