From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
To: Bakul Shah <bakul@iitbombay.org>, Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com>,
The Unix Heritage Society mailing list <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Origins and life of the pg pager
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2020 21:50:09 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20200625015009.GB4655@mit.edu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20200622224301.kdouj%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 12:43:01AM +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> #?0|kent:steffen$ pkginfo -o `command -v col`
> Package File
> util-linux usr/bin/col
>
> states
>
> /*
> * This command is deprecated. The utility is in maintenance mode,
> * meaning we keep them in source tree for backward compatibility
> * only. Do not waste time making this command better, unless the
> * fix is about security or other very critical issue.
> *
> * See Documentation/deprecated.txt for more information.
> */
I'll note that the Austin Group / The Open Group marked those commands
as LEGACY[1] in the Single Unix Specification V2 in 1997:
The utilities in the table below are marked LEGACY. Various factors
may have contributed to the decision to class a utility
LEGACY. Application writers should not use functionality marked
LEGACY.
If a migration path exists, advice is given to application
developers regarding alternative means of obtaining similar
functionality. This information may be found in the APPLICATION
USAGE sections on the relevant pages.
No requirement beyond that which was in effect at the time that
these utilities were marked LEGACY shall be applied to these
utilities.
calendar cancel cc col cpio cu dircmp dis egrep fgrep line lint lpstat
mail pack pcat pg spell sum tar unpack uulog uuname uupick uuto
[1] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xcu/intro.html#tag_001_003_003
The quote from the Single Unix Specification: "No requirement beyond
that which was in effect at the time that these utilities were marked
LEGACY shall be applied to these utilities." is not that different
from "Do not waste time making this command better, unless the fix is
about security or other very critical issue."
And while I'm sure the Linux haters will be happy to try to blame
Linux for the decision to declare pg, col, et.al as "legacy", in 1997
The Open Group was hardly filled with Linux developers; '97 predates
IBM and Oracle declaring their support for Linux (1998), the
publication of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar (also 1998), the start of
the GNOME project (1999), Red Hat Enterprise Linux (first released
in 2002), and Ubuntu Linux (2004).
- Ted
P.S. Of course, the fact that the The Open Group tried to convince
the world to stop using tar and cpio in favor to pax seems to be a
strong indication that they forgot the lesson of King Canute. :-)
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-06-25 1:56 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 46+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-06-14 22:52 [TUHS] Fwd: " Warren Toomey
2020-06-14 23:37 ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-06-14 23:52 ` [TUHS] " David Barto
2020-06-15 0:06 ` George Michaelson
2020-06-15 0:31 ` Alan D. Salewski
2020-06-15 0:35 ` Alan D. Salewski
2020-06-15 1:38 ` Warner Losh
2020-06-15 1:47 ` Larry McVoy
2020-06-15 2:38 ` Alec Muffett
2020-06-15 2:46 ` Alec Muffett
2020-06-15 2:26 ` Charles H. Sauer
2020-06-15 14:03 ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-06-15 20:19 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-06-15 20:50 ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-06-15 0:32 ` [TUHS] Fwd: " Nemo Nusquam
2020-06-15 5:41 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-15 13:56 ` Clem Cole
2020-06-15 14:15 ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-06-15 14:56 ` Clem Cole
2020-06-15 15:04 ` Richard Salz
2020-06-15 16:14 ` Clem Cole
2020-06-15 15:45 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-15 19:08 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-21 18:49 ` Michael Siegel
2020-06-22 0:35 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-06-22 16:24 ` Derek Fawcus
2020-06-22 21:33 ` Rob Pike
2020-06-22 21:58 ` Kurt H Maier
2020-06-22 21:59 ` [TUHS] " Bakul Shah
2020-06-22 22:43 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-06-25 1:50 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o [this message]
2020-06-25 21:31 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-07-05 1:34 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-06-18 12:49 ` [TUHS] Fwd: " Michael Siegel
2020-06-15 2:26 [TUHS] " Doug McIlroy
2020-06-15 2:41 ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-15 2:55 ` Larry McVoy
2020-06-15 4:26 ` Rob Pike
2020-06-15 4:27 ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-15 4:38 ` George Michaelson
2020-06-15 7:40 ` Ed Carp
2020-06-15 8:17 ` Rob Pike
2020-06-15 7:12 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-06-15 20:25 Norman Wilson
2020-06-15 21:36 ` Rob Pike
2020-06-15 22:55 ` Henry Bent
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