From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: pete@nomadlogic.org (Pete Wright)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2017 08:01:46 -0700
Subject: /bin/true (was [TUHS] basic tools / Universal Unix)
In-Reply-To: <009a01d348e9$e3dce200$ab96a600$@ronnatalie.com>
References: <009a01d348e9$e3dce200$ab96a600$@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <16f4f265-a470-5b4c-3cf0-75890e0c8572@nomadlogic.org>



On 10/19/2017 07:52, Ron Natalie wrote:
> My favorite reduction to absurdity was /bin/true.   Someone decided we
> needed shell commands for true and false.   Easy enough to add a script that
> said "exit 0" or exit 1" as its only line.
> Then someone realized that the "exit 0" in /bin true was superfluous, the
> default return was 0.  /bin/true turned into an empty, yet executable, file.
>
> Then the lawyers got involved.    We got a version of a packaged UNIX (I
> think it was Interactive Systems).    Every shell script got twelve lines of
> copyright/license boilerplate.     Including /bin true.
> The file had nothing but useless comment in it.

heh yea it certainly seems pretty funny, but i will say it did present a 
neat opportunity for the NYC BSD user-group back in 2015:
http://www.nycbug.org/index.cgi?action=view&id=10635

it was pretty funny to see how many different implementations one could 
dream up for such a simple program, and it seemed to speak to how each 
project approaches complexity.

-pete

-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
@nomadlogicLA