[ITP] mksh 2.6.3 -- MirBSD Korn shell, improved pdksh implementation

[Igor Peshansky]

On Fri, 5 May 2006, Jari Aalto wrote:

> Igor Peshansky <pechtcha-+I05ep9qJbk3uPMLIKxrzw@public.gmane.org> writes:
>
> > As the pdksh maintainer, I would like to veto having this package in
> > the distro simultaneously with pdksh (since this is a newer version of
> > pretty much the same package).  In fact, I've been (slowly) working on
> > preparing a new release of pdksh that includes many of the mirbsd
> > patches.  I don't mind obsoleting pdksh in favor of mksh, but we'll
> > need to coordinate this.
> >
> > Jari, you might want to review the pending complaints about pdksh to
> > see if they are fixed in your mksh version.  I can send you a list
> > (with links to archives) if you're interested.
>
> Yes please send them,

Ok, here are the ones I have on my list:

http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2004-08/msg00112.html
http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2005-06/msg00202.html
http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2005-08/msg01382.html
http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2006-02/msg00448.html

> I've been in contact with the mksh maintainer and already provided a
> patch to implement standard shell startup file:
>
>         ~/.mkshrc
>
> in addition to current use of
>
>         ~/.profile + ENV

That's nice.

> As Debian and Gentoo includes both pdksh and mksh, I'm not sure what
> is vetoed here.  I'd like not to involve with politics if there is some
> schisma between these two development camps. I'd rather like to offer
> oppurtunity for users to select what they prefer. Just to oppose
> program "because similar is already there to do same thing", would in
> fact veto any other program as well, like: MTAs? Sure, there is
> already exim4 in Cygwin, why should there were need for more MTAs?
>
> I'd be more in favor of porting applications regardless of "GNOME vs
> KDE" type of rivarly.

Jari, there is no rivalry that I know of, and no politics.  The veto was
purely for practical reasons -- since pdksh development is dead, AFAICS,
except in various branches (e.g., Debian, or BSD), we shouldn't keep it in
the distro if we decide to also provide a newer (better?) version, and I
wouldn't want to maintain an obsolete package.

If there are substantial differences, please list them so that we can make
an informed decision on whether to keep both pdksh and mksh.  As I
understand it, mksh subsumes pdksh.  Again, I'm willing to obsolete pdksh
in favor of mksh *if* it is indeed a drop-in replacement.
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
      |\      _,,,---,,_	    pechtcha@cs.nyu.edu | igor@watson.ibm.com
ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		Igor Peshansky, Ph.D. (name changed!)
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		old name: Igor Pechtchanski
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

"Las! je suis sot... -Mais non, tu ne l'es pas, puisque tu t'en rends compte."
"But no -- you are no fool; you call yourself a fool, there's proof enough in
that!" -- Rostand, "Cyrano de Bergerac"