Re: Official position on POSIX compliance?
Clint Adams <schizo@debian.org> wrote:
>> * 'tail -1' and 'head -1' instead of POSIX-compliant 'tail -n 1' and
>> 'head -n 1'.
>> * user/group specification as 'user.group' as an argument for chown, for
>> example. The correct POSIX form is 'user:group'.
Which is probably the single thing where the POSIX way is obviously
better. (as it does not break on usernames containing "."). ;-)
[...]
> * 'command -v' and 'type' instead of '/usr/bin/which' or similar mechanism.
No. i.e. although it is a UP extension we are probably going to
embrace it, simply because which is not up to the job. (no support for
shell functions/aliases). See http://bugs.debian.org/218530 for
details.
>> * Does the majority of Debian developers agree, that this compliance
>> should be enforced and bugs should be filed against the non-compliant
>> packages?
No way to tell without a GR.
> Seems that way.
>> * What severity should be assigned to non-POSIX-compliance bugs (if any)?
> serious; it's a violation of a 'must' directive of Policy 10.4.
No.
1) policy says nothing about e.g. chmod, as it is no shell builtin.
2) We have yet not even decided which superset of POSIX-sh we will
require (probably just UP and echo -n)
3) "echo -n" is definitely not POSIX (even forbidden for XSI) but we
encourage it in policy anyway.
4) There is usually[1] no point submitting bugs about usage of non-POSIX
options for our userland. In the first place our userland is not POSIX
compatible (check e.g findutils) and in the second place we call it
Debian/GNU Linux *because* our userland offers more than barebone
posix.
David Weinehall <tao@debian.org> has started auditing packages for
selected XSI extensions, and has submitted the respective bugreports
(with patches) as minor, which seems to be correct to me.
cu andreas
[1] If the respective POSIX compliant alternative of specifying
options is more robust or if upstream suggests to switch to it, things
are different.
--
NMUs aren't an insult, they're not an attack, and they're
not something to avoid or be ashamed of.
Anthony Towns in 2004-02 on debian-devel
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