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Date:      Sun, 02 Jun 2002 23:27:51 -0700
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        jos@catnook.com
Cc:        Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ab.ca>, Sergey Babkin <babkin@bellatlantic.net>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Improving GNU make compatibility in BSD make (+ patch)
Message-ID:  <3CFB0C67.5689C5BC@mindspring.com>
References:  <3CFAAED2.F98FD7B4@bellatlantic.net> <200206030207.g5327Gm1012478@orthanc.ab.ca> <20020603021517.GA11452@lizzy.catnook.com>

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Jos Backus wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 02, 2002 at 08:07:16PM -0600, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
> > --lyndon (who doesn't understand why this is an issue, after having
> >           just converted a *whole* lot of source to work with
> >         POSIX make. Standards? Who gives a f*** (I guess ...))
> 
> I just checked the Open Group make definition and I can't find either $^ or
> $>. So if we want to be truly standards-compliant perhaps we should remove
> support for $> :-)

Intentionally stepping on the option value namespace in the absence
of a ratified standard is a really stupid thing to do.

But POSIX is N-P incomplete for some problems.  On purpose.

This is because POSIX is not meant to be a useful standard, it is
meant to be an exclusionary standard for competition for government
contracts.  It was primarily meant to keep VAX/VMS, VM/CMS, Windows,
and other OS software from vendors without at least an SVR3 source
license and a per unit royalty agreement with AT&T/USL from
competing on contracts like "Desktop II", "Desktop III", "AFCAC 451",
and so on, and to prevent inclusion of such OS's on the GSA purchasing
schedule.

POSIX is the minimum list of conformance requirements which the UNIX
vendors involved could agree on, because their UNIX implementations
already conformed.

POSIX is so fuzzy in so many areas because there were conflicting
implementations, and they had to write it so that all of them
"complied with POSIX" by default, once the standard was ratified
and made into a CLIN requirement for government contracts.

Do you *really* believe that someone would design a standard with
no way to do a lot of things OSs at the time could already do, *on
purpose*, without some ulterior motive?  That POSIX file locking
semantics are the work of an engineering genius?

-- Terry

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