Re: bash should not be essential
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On 13 Nov 1997, James Troup wrote:
> Santiago Vila Doncel <sanvila@unex.es> writes:
>
> > In fact, I am not worried by the fact that bash is essential or not.
> > I am worried by the fact that so many packages depend on it.
>
> I suggest you file bugs on those which needlessly do.
Well, will they be "legitimate" as `wishlist' bugs? Or they will be
refused by saying "I don't think it is important, since bash is essential"
and closed immediately?
If bash is essential, why don't we just use always #!/bin/bash? :-)
This way we would not have to check whether it contains bashisms or
not...
I mean: Do we consider a "good thing" that a shell script does not
need bash?
> > If so many packages depend on bash, users who symlink sh
> > ->someotherPOSIXshell will never be able to get rid of bash, if they
> > do not like it.
>
> You can't rid of a lot of base, so what? (I hope you aren't going to
> argue that ash or something else similar should replace bash in base)
Not all packages from base have to be essential. Being essential and
belonging to base are different things.
> > So if we have to admit bashisms in debian/rules, we are in fact
> > saying "Debian packages will always be for Debian/Linux
> > distributions".
>
> Uh, no. What we're saying is Debian Packages will always be for
> Debian distributions. What's wrong with that?
You have to port a lot of packages for one to work, when there is really
no need. You can't port a single package. Packages are supposed to be
"independent". This independence if what makes them portable.
I still think that talking about "Debian packages" has sense without
having to port the whole Debian distribution.
> [ ... ]
>
> > I still don't see why people who want to port *some* Debian packages
> > to Solaris (not the *entire* Debian distribution) should be forced
> > to port bash as the first package, if /bin/sh has (or should have)
> > the same basic functionality.
>
> Solaris /bin/sh *doesn't*, your case would be a more interesting if
> you used an example which had a POSIX sh as /bin/sh.
Yes, Solaris may be a bad example. In this case I would suggest
to symlink sh -> bash...
But the example will be still valid for systems having a POSIX shell
as /bin/sh.
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