Re: tac feature suggestion

[Johann Brault-Baron]

Hello again !


As expected, adapting the source code was straightforward.
Nevertheless, I found difficulty in compiling the latest coreutils
I got from git. Since I have almost no free time these month,
I will work on it later, and submit a patch then.

I'd like to thank Pádraig Brady that helped me to clarify
the motivations for this patch, and Eric Blake for
the explanations concerning free software,
and for the pointers to relevant documentation.

Remark: the diff file takes less than 20 "real"
lines, 10 of which are source code copied from
"head.c". This makes the patch "almost
trivial". However, I'll follow the copyright
assignment process, just in case.


My apologies for this late answer,

Regards,
Johann Brault-Baron


Le 06/03/2014 11:25 PM, Eric Blake a écrit :
> On 06/03/2014 02:53 PM, braultbaron wrote:
>
> > I guess that, in both cases, I will adapt the existing source
> > to fit my need. If this change is welcomed, I would be pleased
> > to send my source code. If someone finds some clever way to
> > achieve the same result without modifying the existing program,
> > I will be happy to use the trick instead of the modified program.
> > The simpler, the better.
> Sure, you are welcome to send patches.  Some starter hints:
> http://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/HACKING
>
> > About licensing stuff: I don't want my name anywhere,
> > and all the code I produce must stay free software.
> Alas, you are misunderstanding something about free software.  Although
> anonymous software can be open source, it will not be free (that is,
> providing the four freedoms guaranteed by the GPL).  Software can only
> be free when there is a copyright holder associated with it; the only
> way to preserve free software is to have a legal basis to enforce the
> copyleft directives that are granted by the GPL by virtue of following
> copyright law.  In the case of coreutils, we require that non-trivial
> submissions have copyright assigned to the Free Software Foundation, and
> track all such authors that have done so, as a conscious choice that it
> is easier to have a single copyright holder than to track down multiple
> submitters.  If you would like to start the process of copyright
> assignment (a prerequisite for us accepting your patches upstream), see
> here for more details:
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html
> http://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/tree/doc/Copyright/request-assign.future
>
> If not, you can wait for someone else to write a patch that does the
> same thing, for purposes of upstream inclusion.  But as this is free
> software, of course you are allowed to use your own patch locally, even
> if we don't take on the legal risk of accepting it upstream.
>
> > P.S. I replied to the whole list. Is it correct, or should I
> > have replied only to you?
> You did the right thing - we very much prefer keeping the list in the
> loop, so that the conversation is publicly archived and so that others
> may chime in mid-thread (as I did here).