From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri May 8 20:59:50 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9D26BCDE; Fri, 8 May 2015 20:59:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-la0-x22e.google.com (mail-la0-x22e.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:4010:c03::22e]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 237581093; Fri, 8 May 2015 20:59:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: by labbd9 with SMTP id bd9so60768743lab.2; Fri, 08 May 2015 13:59:48 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject :from:to:cc:content-type; bh=kWv/8nvaxBu6gkHIqpVdy91mdW9fRn3+yWWZZP5Wd5w=; b=lSB9/tLyscgDRnwiWiT3INYU6WR50RpIFzQirGGRSmqEU81us5kk/6FoNPn6xWf1rf n/9yZXpmi/vFwv6xLshOqy3HlgMU2tNdNSN+4aM3MwbxjEfCYytX6Gtt5uz+7rBXDcpH +Gmxj2jlWd1vjPsVxZEjwTD3FnpMOB01BA0nQLfgbR/RdjpKq12I+Lfw8bTAnA1OLTjY FUAprz5zZ6nUkNvbDnBtpKs7h8vah4MiZwLl4FLQNY/MIBo8Qr2kL1Ryg24RUslqYhHS tHuk8KBwRHhIKYBo/nH6O1hawFzYCWzQMWrnBNTxtCqoMx+O/iIsZWcKFGeFtOsPbeUc R7Hg== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.152.42.242 with SMTP id r18mr4294031lal.8.1431118788057; Fri, 08 May 2015 13:59:48 -0700 (PDT) Sender: davide.italiano@gmail.com Received: by 10.25.88.77 with HTTP; Fri, 8 May 2015 13:59:47 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <554D1DD5.5080106@FreeBSD.org> References: <554BB84F.7060605@FreeBSD.org> <554BCD4C.8090500@FreeBSD.org> <3137063.YOSa6Au8Xi@ralph.baldwin.cx> <554D1DD5.5080106@FreeBSD.org> Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 13:59:47 -0700 X-Google-Sender-Auth: PG2TTBnShP77grcEN8KfhLjKa18 Message-ID: Subject: Re: What to do about RCS/OpenRCS From: Davide Italiano To: Pedro Giffuni Cc: John Baldwin , freebsd-current , NGie Cooper , Lyndon Nerenberg Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 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, 08 May 2015 20:59:50 -0000 On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 1:34 PM, Pedro Giffuni wrote: > Hi; > > >> I guess I see the following options: >> >> 1) Just leave GNU RCS in the tree. >> >> 2) Improve OpenRCS so it can be swapped in. >> >> 3) Remove RCS dependencies from other parts of the tree (e.g. >> etcupdate) >> and import just a /bin/ident binary (perhaps from OpenRCS). >> >> Both 2) and 3) require some work. I suspect 3) requires less. :) > > > I honestly don't see a real problem with (1): we do want to replace as much > GNU > software as we can but not at the cost of making our life unnecessarily > difficult. > To be honest I'm not entirely sure what's the real reason of this crusade. FreeBSD can't import newer version of some components of the toolchain (e.g. compiler, linker, debugger) and some of them are slowly (or less slowly) bitrotting. I feel that in that case there's a real goal which justifies all the headache derived from the conversion. For GNU RCS, I'm not completely sure there is. I've never heard anybody complaining about lack of features for RCS or bugs. My $0.02, I suspect very few people really rely on it and just complain for the sake of doing it, but I'm not gonna argue on this further. That said, unfortunately there's a lot more than doing the conversion and fixing the code so that the testsuite will pass. You need to upstream the fixes and so deal with another layer and other maintainers otherwise the code in base and the one upstream will diverge. People rely from time to time on bugs of old software (e.g. single vs double dash options) and are gonna complain. The testsuite, even if comprehensive, unlikely will cover some corner cases and suddenly software will start breaking. In other words, a lot of (unneeded) work for you for a software that just worked fine(TM) until yesterday. I'm not gonna stop you from doing this, but I learned the hard way that it's something that can/should be avoided unless really necessary (and a better license doesn't seem to be a strong enough reason, IMHO). -- Davide "There are no solved problems; there are only problems that are more or less solved" -- Henri Poincare