Re: Future of /usr/bin/which in Debian?

[Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org>]

On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 09:00:52AM +0100, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 11:02:49AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > It seems to install to /usr/bin/which.gnu, implying that you could 
> > upload /usr/bin/which.bsd if you so desire; what's the issue?
>
> I think we should have just one which implementation in the archive. We
> should (have) pick(ed) the best one for Debian. I believe (perhaps
> unfairly... I'd love to be proven wrong) that the GNU implementation was
> uploaded very quickly, without the BSD implementation being considered.
> Perhaps the GNU one is the best fit for our needs. It would have been
> nice to see that there was an evaluation.

I think it doesn't matter how many which implementations are in debian. 
If you want something with specific portable semantics, just use command 
-v. The remaining consumers of which are either programs that (ipso 
facto) don't care about semantic corner cases or are humans who want to 
use which just because, and probably have strong opinions on how it 
should behave (as, apparently, you do). We can't satisfy everybody with 
one implementation, and I see no technical reason that we'd even try to 
do so.