Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 22:25:28 +0200 From: des@des.no (Dag-Erling =?iso-8859-1?q?Sm=F8rgrav?=) To: Paul Robinson <paul@iconoplex.co.uk> Cc: Michael Carr <sphaleotas@blueyonder.co.uk> Subject: Re: RMS says: "Use BSD, for goodness sake!" Message-ID: <xzp1xxg8u2v.fsf@dwp.des.no> In-Reply-To: <20030626110336.GW34365@iconoplex.co.uk> (Paul Robinson's message of "Thu, 26 Jun 2003 12:03:37 %2B0100") References: <4.3.2.7.2.20030625214311.00e5e240@localhost> <20030626010357.J508@hub.org> <20030626110336.GW34365@iconoplex.co.uk>
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Paul Robinson <paul@iconoplex.co.uk> writes: > as - could be replaced, maybe even re-implmented. > awk - encourage people to port their code away from awk. Big. Look again. We don't use a GPLed awk. > 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. > binutils - collection of some 20 smallish apps, all manageable > bzip2 - could be reimplemented More like "doesn't really belong in the base system". Yes, I know it compresses better than libz, but it is significantly slower and more memory-intensive. > cpio - reimplement from man page, or replace/remove requirement for I don't think we actually need it. > cvs - Don't need this do we? :-) look at another version control? Not bloody likely. Not any time soon, anyway. > grep - the issue here is the regexp, otherwise re-implement. There is a BSD-licensed version in ports, which apart from a bug or two and some performance issues is IMHO superior to GNU grep. > groff - look at alternate doc formatting? Not bloody likely, unless you volunteer to convert all the man pages (including translations). > gzip - nasty, but re-implementable. Or we move to a non-GNU zip format. Trivially reimplementable, since libz is under a BSD-like license. > ipfilter - unclear on license... QNX_OCL.txt??? Not GPLed. > less - re-implementable quite quickly You might be surprised... > libio - another stdio lib from somewhere to replace it? > libpam - Linux PAM. Major effort to replace. Bzzt, wrong. There is no GPLed code in our PAM implementation or modules. > man - could be re-implemented based on file format information known This is a SMOP. > perl - it's not part of base anymore is it? Not in 5.x. > send-pr - remove! OK, re-implement, if you must. :-) Overdue for replacement. > sort - another undergrad project based on the man page There are non-trivial locale issues. > texinfo - find alternative, or remove from base It is required to process documentation for significant portion of the base system. DES --=20 Dag-Erling Sm=F8rgrav - des@des.no
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