Sender:	rich AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk
Message-ID:	<3DA9506D.FA8E5FD5@phekda.freeserve.co.uk>
Date:	Sun, 13 Oct 2002 11:52:29 +0100
From:	Richard Dawe <rich AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk>
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To:	djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: File UItils at Clio 2.04 Query
References:	<10210120346 DOT AA05699 AT clio DOT rice DOT edu>
Reply-To:	djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com

Hello.

Charles Sandmann wrote:
[snip]
> I don't know of anything broken in the Fileutils 4.0 - so I would
> just distribute 4.0 until we swap over (option a).

When I finished porting 4.0, Jim Meyering suggested that I should port 4.1
pretty quickly, because of nasty bugs in 4.0. Looking at
/dev/env/DJDIR/gnu/filutil4.1/NEWS, there are some nasty bugs that could lead
to data loss.

> It seems there are problems with Fileutils 4.1 on other platforms too,
> based on another message (based on current 2.03 libc).  If we are
> "supporting" 4.1, that would indicate that someone is spending time to find
> and fix bugs there.

I started looking at the code on Friday. I haven't got very far, but I hope to
nail the problem before I go on holiday for a month and half on Saturday.

[snip]
> Since Fileutils 4.1 is a dead end, replaced by CoreUtils, any
> effort is interesting but somewhat a throwaway.  If it's a Fileutils
> 4.1 assumption that is too unixy, we would just ifdef it out
> (more like 4.0).  If it turfs up a bug in the libc, that might
> be interesting (but unlikely).  If it's a bug in 4.1, we replace
> it anyway with coreutils.  Unless someone is really interested,
> it seems we roll back to 4.0 and spend time on coreutils port?

Post-fileutils 4.1 (actually fileutils 4.1.9), the 'rm' implementation
(remove.c) was completely rewritten. Bugs are still being fixed in it. There's
no official stable release of coreutils yet. That makes me nervous about
relying on a coreutils port, when we have a stable fileutils port. I will be
working of a coreutils port, when the rm bug is fixed/worked round in
fileutils 4.1.
 
> > The above sounds as if you will
> > end up with a package that cannot be recreated from the source.
> > That will lead to future confusion.
> 
> It certainly sounds that way, and against the spirit of GPL.

Why is it against the spirit of the GPL? As long as sources are available for
the hybrid binary distribution, I don't think it violates the GPL. No source
changes would be needed.

Bye, Rich =]

-- 
Richard Dawe [ http://www.phekda.freeserve.co.uk/richdawe/ ]

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