Re: [Groff] new automake system

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Werner,

Werner LEMBERG wrote on Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 05:28:47PM +0200:

>> In the GNU/Linux world, many systems (apart from the kernel and
>> maybe the coreutils and maybe a very small number of other
>> components) consist of a variable set of packages, and each
>> distribution, and to a certain extent each user, is free to assemble
>> their system from whatever components they want.  [...]

> Yes.

>> In the BSD world, by contrast, the whole system including the
>> kernel, a full POSIX compatible userland, and many other base system
>> tools is regarded as one indivisable entity, intended to work
>> smoothly together as one whole.  [...]

> Well, in many cases GNU tools provide extensions to POSIX, sometimes
> even in incompatible ways, since POSIX is often a compromise, not
> necessarily the best solution for a given task.

We don't disagree about that.  If a specific software package has
good reasons to require an extended version of a POSIX tool, for
example because the required work is impossible to do with the
POSIX tool or the extended tool greatly simplifies the work,
it may make sense to explicitly depend on the extended tool.

All i was trying to say is that if that's not the case and the
specific software package rather tries to use the tool in a POSIX
compatible way (as groff does with sed and yacc), we prefer to use
the base system version, not some extended version that isn't
actually required.

> And sometimes POSIX decisions are really bad, as you certainly know.

No doubt about that.  I don't object to deviations from POSIX in
cases where POSIX decisions are really bad.  To name just one
arbitrary example, we explicitly rejected adding wordexp(3) to our
libc for security reasons, even though it is required by POSIX.  I
merely intended to say that we don't like gratuitiously prefering
non-POSIX tools over POSIX tools.

Yours,
  Ingo