Re: /USR/BIN/CRON
>> > And the one million dollar question:
>> >
>> > Why the ugly /USR/BIN/CRON and not /usr/bin/cron?
>>
>> Because Paul Vixie wanted it that way. It's a deliberate, commented
>> item in the source.
>
>Do you mean that sendmail author is allowed to write "SENDMAIL" instead of
>"sendmail" as long as it is "deliberate" ?
Yes. Also you are allowed to decline to use sendmail, Vixie-cron, and any
other software that you don't like due to naming of argv[0] or any other reason.
Being Open Source software you are also allowed to write a patch to either
disable that feature entirely or to make it a configuration option as to
whether it looks like that. For example you could set it so that having
"CRON-CAPS=NO" as the first line of a crontab makes it lower-case.
When you have written such a patch feel free to start a discussion as to
whether your patch should be included in the Debian package or whether we
should have Debian cron work the same as every other Vixie cron system in the
world.
Let's base policy around code that works rather than just inventing policies
and trying to force programs that fit.
>> > Does every daemon have the right to uppercase its name or just cron has
>> > that right? Is there any item in policy about this exception?
>>
>> I hope there's not policy about this. It's strictly a cosmetic thing,
>> and I find it to be a useful cosemetic thing, in that it clearly denotes
>> the spawned cron tasks.
>
>Ok, sendmail should then uppercase itself too, so that it clearly denotes
>the sendmail processes.
Fine. Write the patch, submit it to the maintainer of the sendmail package and
to the Sendmail team and ask them to make it default behaviour.
>This is like saying that the Subject of a mailing list should always
>automatically contain the name of the list [debian-devel], so that it is
>"easily identified".
Next time you create a mailing list feel free to configure it to do so. I'm
sure that such configuration is not difficult.
--
I'll be in Denver from 30 Oct 1998 to 7 Nov 1998 (or maybe a few days longer).
I'll be in London from ~9 Nov 1998. I'd like to meet any Linux users or
users groups in these places at these times.
I plan to work in London for 3 - 6 months...
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