RE: coreutils rm - win32 native port

[Reuben Thomas]

On Wed, 15 Aug 2007, Aviad Lahav wrote:

> I'm sorry but this is getting much too religious debate,

Maintaining multi-platform utilities on which users of many of those 
platforms depend minute-by-minute is a tricky enterprise. I don't see any 
"religious debate" here, only a platform-specific versus a more general 
viewpoint.

> If you want the updates, I'll post them (along with additional changes to
> support mv & cp).

As Eric explains (and as for all GNU software), you'd need to assign 
copyright in them to the FSF.

> If not, it's a pity - I think you're turning against your users.

Like yours, the GNU coreutils maintainers' time is limited. It's unrealistic 
to expect them simply to accept patches; apart from the legal aspect of 
copyright assignment, there is the maintenance burden. You've offered to 
take that on, which is great, but it's hardly surprising if the maintainers 
don't immediately believe that's going to work out. These things have to be 
taken a step at a time!

It's great that you've offered to write and maintain a win32 port; it is 
perhaps possible, though, that you haven't appreciated how much work that 
is, and in particular that it's not simply a question of writing code. If 
you can commit to the required work, then do be patient and persevere, and 
you may be able to make a contribution that will benefit many GNU users on 
Windows.

--
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