Re: bash should not be essential
Scott Ellis <storm@gate.net> writes:
> > The point is, bash is already essential, that is Debian policy.
> > The onus is on *you* to demonstrate why that should be changed.
>
> "Because it is that way now" is NOT necessarily a valid argument for
> keeping things the same way.
I never said it was, however you have to still to present arguments
for the change.
> Slavery used to be common, East Germany used to exist. That is not
> a valid arguement for the continuance of East Germany and slavery.
Are you perhaps taking things a little out of proportion? I don't
think bash as essential can in any sane way be compared to the
practice of slavery.
> > You aren't forcing them to use it; we are forcing them to have it
> > installed, there is a difference. [ ... ]
>
> The point is that people are trying to build a system where bash isn't
> needed
Who is? A Debian system? And to what end? What happens WRT to
libreadline? Are all the packages that depend on that (hmm,
e.g. netstd) omitted to?
And can you please answer the questions presented in the following
paragraph, they are _central_ to the discussion:
*We have to have a POSIX bourne shell which is essential (or are you
going to dispute that?), why should it not be bash? If it isn't bash,
what do you suggest in it's place?*
> > > The below lines are the Installed-Size values from the copys of
> > > the shells on my drive. People installing in cramped spaces
> > > could benifit from working with something a tad less bloated
> > > (not to mention the speed benifit from a smaller, less complex
> > > shell).
> >
> > So what are you going to do? Ban people from using ``bash-ism's'' in
> > debian/*? Unless you do so, even if bash isn't essential, people are
> > still going to use ``bash-ism's'' in their scripts and so bash will
> > still need to be installed. What exactly have you won?
>
> Maybe make a stronger suggestion to that effect. Even if they don't clean
> up their rules files, if the installed package doesn't need bash, we've
> won something here.
No you haven't. Unless you totally ban the use of #!/bin/bash, bash
will still need to be installed for certain packages, and you have
gained zippo and zilch from removing the essential tag. Besides you
can make this "stronger suggestion" without making bash not essential.
--
James
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