Re: bash should not be essential
Santiago Vila Doncel <sanvila@unex.es> writes:
> > 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?
Herbert has been filing bugs, for months now, against packages for
needlessly using #!/bin/bash when #!/bin/sh would work.
> If bash is essential, why don't we just use always #!/bin/bash? :-)
Because if #!/bin/sh would work, it's better to use that, it might be
ash.
> This way we would not have to check whether it contains bashisms or
> not...
And we would lose any possibility of using ash or some other more
stream-lined shell.
> I mean: Do we consider a "good thing" that a shell script does not
> need bash?
I, obviously can't speak for "we", but I do and so does Herbert, and
no one has thrown a fit about his bugs that I've seen.
> > > 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.
Blah, okay, you can't get rid of a lot of essential things. My
question stands, do you want something to replace bash in base?
> > > 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.
Do you compile many packages? I'm unlucky enough to have to, and
trust me, lots of packages have huge *strings* of source-dependencies.
(e.g. anything using debiandoc*, sgml2*, makeinfo or texi2html).
> I still think that talking about "Debian packages" has sense without
> having to port the whole Debian distribution.
I don't think we should go out of our way to make it make sense. We
have many more important things to deal with IMHO.
> But the example will be still valid for systems having a POSIX shell
> as /bin/sh.
Does one exist?
--
James
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