dash bug which is affecting release goal

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

Dash has a serious bug which is causing grief.

The problem is that it overrides the system's "test" command (in
Debian, /usr/bin/test and /usr/bin/[) and does so in a way which is
inconsistent with the Debian versions.

Nothing in Posix permits this behavior, but it is tolerated by the
standard *provided* the shell does not change the syntax of the command.
Alas, dash does change the syntax of the command.

Now bug reports are being filed claiming that failure to conform to
dash's non-Posixism is a bug.  Programs which expect the behavior of
Debian's "test" command are not buggy.  What is buggy is a shell which
overrides the test command in an inconsistent way.

There is nothing bash-specific about expecting the "test" command to be
implemented in the normal way that Debian's "test" program is
implemented.  There is no reliance on a non-Posix *shell* feature when
one expects *other programs* to work normally.

Shells can override commands, but only if they don't play games with the
syntax.

Thomas