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Re: [ITP] util-linux


Christopher Faylor wrote:
What problem are we trying to solve here?

I thought that we resolved a long time ago that we were going to use
cygutils and pull things into it from util-linux as needed.

I believe that's the current operating assumption, mainly because when I first created cygutils (known as 'misc' at the time), I simply snarfed most of its contents from util-linux, and hacked them up to remove the internal references to shipped-along gettext use instead the system-installed libintl3 instead, and various other changes.


Thus, since much of util-linux ended up in cygutils, inertia sez "keep using cygutils".

However, these util-linux "ports" represent a fork from the "official" util-linux sources.

I don't see any compelling reason to change this behavior.  Am I missing
something?

Well, the compelling reason is to un-fork. I don't track util-linux changes -- but then, there haven't been any complaints about "why is col.exe out of date" so far. Plus, even if you strip out all of the apps in the OP's package that compile-but-do-not-work, you're still left with a list bigger than what is currently available in cygutils (I think).


Two choices: "port" these (few?) additional programs to cygutils (e.g. so they too link against installed libintl3, use #include <common.h> which is properly autoconf-guarded instead of hard-including a bunch of stuff, etc). Or, remove the current versions from cygutils and let the OP take 'em.

I honestly don't care. Removing stuff from cygutils is easy; adding stuff to cygutils -- assuming I'm handed a patch to do so -- is also easy (for me). Creating that patch, to do the things mentioned in the preceeding paragraph and outlined in /usr/share/doc/cygutils-1.2.10/HOW-TO-CONTRIBUTE is a bit harder.

So, the big question here is: exactly how many new utilities are we talking about here, that actually *work* on cygwin (rather than just compile)? 5? 10? 1? Dunno -- the OP will have to answer that. Then we can have a more informed discussion.

--
Chuck


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