From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FROM,HTML_MESSAGE,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 9521 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2023 03:15:22 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 19 Mar 2023 03:15:22 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EC7534123D; Sun, 19 Mar 2023 13:15:15 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-yb1-xb30.google.com (mail-yb1-xb30.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:4864:20::b30]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2E6E441206 for ; Sun, 19 Mar 2023 13:15:02 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-yb1-xb30.google.com with SMTP id e65so9513201ybh.10 for ; Sat, 18 Mar 2023 20:15:02 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20210112; t=1679195701; h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:in-reply-to:references :mime-version:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=ny2FquoDhJGwMekJBezdl3InqN6tF+kHmSG76GrMmtM=; b=fNrhqbvG9yi0hECViNl4vf52QW8Pd9431RfDpXUYtWADcNAu7Pz0il7A7PxQVfmxVb 1PndbjUTJWdXk+j+DAvj7OL4ykPAMd0JGCJgBwYQ9dvKdT6xwYdcbMrtyNHkpkl7M/k/ 0yypDfhP2mnzIFwQk1OW55aKjmJGgKxijNttQ5/e0KhWnBb23tx138jDs6Pv0bRl4ldo KbhLXh+zX+p1BSiOxkdCCVF3fTnb4xJemtnlw1evabRuHi++V8BFUPSBUmtOIF05OWVe bfTImD7CX0oROAMYZJHDuMv3BiZP9fAal0vXXKWiYrq4HRe6NpC591EPyW9jgdsL87v7 CrWg== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20210112; t=1679195701; h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:in-reply-to:references :mime-version:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id :reply-to; bh=ny2FquoDhJGwMekJBezdl3InqN6tF+kHmSG76GrMmtM=; b=XaPjFPKDO0zNAWo4yRNcRt1LAHfx7cH8KGXvsw7qyn0ezStxlNh9tseNpYe+IrxCuZ GoJbp5EDBl3aznvQE821AgAnYHI72sEUUvDzkqbreZlO6dXFLX46g9bFnquEtIAOyXd5 VqxPPKeJxLL3Lsf+80Q0W6vJta/SsNWQWnjArDtaPdVZE8ECrHtZX9fxw1pta5SaFPFf H0A4e8JZNxGgwhLw6lcuCl5zpyNU7Zm5KOw9lmoqRQQFbkfqXs2cy9eQ5jLHGO7Ko/+C AeowZmbij1xMwIQYnoqXMd22184jVsY+U9sjcrttZ/xmijjZTR45G6IPtTEdzd1QVF+v pMOw== X-Gm-Message-State: AO0yUKWzqICDToK6uZStuy8hn92m3BCvqclfN+xj1u67z/MAxZXT6bCn gaO8n5nyfjnP34TmWHBPkNIO1ohxgkPIB8hiunk= X-Google-Smtp-Source: AK7set+sdRZzjj21GgWRBXKcBP+ejENz+8r014rrowgVYAViwegrf5hGmVoYwvJAeGVLfoUX3g7R26hOwhLthAzV2Q0= X-Received: by 2002:a5b:181:0:b0:acd:7374:f15b with SMTP id r1-20020a5b0181000000b00acd7374f15bmr2573120ybl.13.1679195701073; Sat, 18 Mar 2023 20:15:01 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20230318203941.GC11916@mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <20230318203941.GC11916@mit.edu> From: James Johnston Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2023 20:14:50 -0700 Message-ID: To: "Theodore Ts'o" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0000000000004559d405f73837d2" Message-ID-Hash: J3OPH62YBWFI5VCIMKIZI4HKXD7JBVKQ X-Message-ID-Hash: J3OPH62YBWFI5VCIMKIZI4HKXD7JBVKQ X-MailFrom: audioskeptic@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: segaloco , The Eunuchs Hysterical Society X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] =?utf-8?q?Re=3A_UNIX_co-creator_Ken_Thompson_is_a=E2=80=A6_what=2C_user_now=3F?= List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: --0000000000004559d405f73837d2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Speaking as someone who's watched it happen before, Ken HAS been known to troll the industry once or twice, or maybe 3 times, or ... On Sat, Mar 18, 2023 at 1:40=E2=80=AFPM Theodore Ts'o wrote= : > On Sat, Mar 18, 2023 at 04:21:24PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > > > Do Linux providers even know the POSIX standard exists? No I don't > > expect them to go pay for certification but geeze, the amount of > > times in the past few years I've propped up a random distro on a > > machine or VM and been unable to rely on even the most basic stuff > > being there is disheartening. No wonder people don't use Linux in > > the UNIX-y way so often, half the darn system isn't represented in > > most Linux base installs. Is this the LSBs fault or does nobody look > > at that anymore either? My experiences recently say not... > > The Linux Standard Base has largely been abandoned --- none of the > major Linux companies were willing to pay their engineers to spend > time working on it. (It was one of those things that really only > mattered to people who were selling software to enterprises, and the > *reason* why companies spent $$$ paying engineers to work on LSB and > going to ISO meetings was so that enterprise softare vendors could > more easily ship product that would work equally well on Red Hat > Enterprise Linux and SuSE Enterprise Linux.) > > But even when LSB was around (Debian is dropping LSB support in the > next release), it was generally not installed by default and was *not* > part of the base install. If you installed the LSB package, it would > drag in all of the userspace utilities and libraries needed to provide > POSIX.1 and POSIX.2 conformance. > > One of the reasons why users prefer a very small base install is > because if they are trying to install on small systems (such as > Rasberry PI), or if they are using container systems (e.g., Docker), > they want to keep the base system as small as possible. And there are > utilities like uuencode and uudecode, which while required by POSIX.2, > in reality, the most users for most Linux distributions don't use, so > it's not installed by default. If you want it, you can always install > the sharutils package. > > Finally, I'll note that what Posix.2 requires has changed over time. > For example uucp used to be required for POSIX.2 compliance. It no > longer is required. In addition, POSIX.2 has withdrawn tools like > banner and chroot, and they will be withdrawing calendar, col, cpio, > pg, spell, sum, and other utilities in the next revisions of the > standard. > > Complaining about what is the default seems to me to rather pointless. > And if you are going to insist on complaining aobut it, what about > Solaris? The default Solaris install didn't come with cc or fort77 > installed, even though they are required by POSIX.2. You had to pay > $$$ to get an optional package if you wanted those tools, and Solaris > was still considered "Unix" since it was descended from AT&T code, and > they didn't need to present their system for POSIX compliance before > being able to use the "Unix" trademark. (And if they did, they would > presumably just state in their conformance document that you had to > pay $$$ for a copy of Sun Studio.) > > And I can assure you that Sun Microsystems knew about POSIX. They > just chose to not include everything required by POSIX.2 in their > default install. > > - Ted > > --=20 James D. (jj) Johnston Chief Scientist, Immersion Networks --0000000000004559d405f73837d2 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Speaking as someone who's watched it happen befor= e, Ken HAS been known to troll the industry once or twice, or maybe 3 times= , or ...



On Sat, Mar 18, 2023 at 1:40=E2=80=AFPM Theodore = Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> wrote:<= br>
On Sat, Mar 18, = 2023 at 04:21:24PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote:
>
> Do Linux providers even know the POSIX standard exists? No I don't=
> expect them to go pay for certification but geeze, the amount of
> times in the past few years I've propped up a random distro on a > machine or VM and been unable to rely on even the most basic stuff
> being there is disheartening. No wonder people don't use Linux in<= br> > the UNIX-y way so often, half the darn system isn't represented in=
> most Linux base installs. Is this the LSBs fault or does nobody look > at that anymore either? My experiences recently say not...

The Linux Standard Base has largely been abandoned --- none of the
major Linux companies were willing to pay their engineers to spend
time working on it.=C2=A0 (It was one of those things that really only
mattered to people who were selling software to enterprises, and the
*reason* why companies spent $$$ paying engineers to work on LSB and
going to ISO meetings was so that enterprise softare vendors could
more easily ship product that would work equally well on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux and SuSE Enterprise Linux.)

But even when LSB was around (Debian is dropping LSB support in the
next release), it was generally not installed by default and was *not*
part of the base install.=C2=A0 If you installed the LSB package, it would<= br> drag in all of the userspace utilities and libraries needed to provide
POSIX.1 and POSIX.2 conformance.

One of the reasons why users prefer a very small base install is
because if they are trying to install on small systems (such as
Rasberry PI), or if they are using container systems (e.g., Docker),
they want to keep the base system as small as possible.=C2=A0 And there are=
utilities like uuencode and uudecode, which while required by POSIX.2,
in reality, the most users for most Linux distributions don't use, so it's not installed by default.=C2=A0 If you want it, you can always ins= tall
the sharutils package.

Finally, I'll note that what Posix.2 requires has changed over time. For example uucp used to be required for POSIX.2 compliance.=C2=A0 It no longer is required.=C2=A0 In addition, POSIX.2 has withdrawn tools like
banner and chroot, and they will be withdrawing calendar, col, cpio,
pg, spell, sum, and other utilities in the next revisions of the
standard.

Complaining about what is the default seems to me to rather pointless.
And if you are going to insist on complaining aobut it, what about
Solaris?=C2=A0 The default Solaris install didn't come with cc or fort7= 7
installed, even though they are required by POSIX.2.=C2=A0 You had to pay $$$ to get an optional package if you wanted those tools, and Solaris
was still considered "Unix" since it was descended from AT&T = code, and
they didn't need to present their system for POSIX compliance before being able to use the "Unix" trademark.=C2=A0 (And if they did, t= hey would
presumably just state in their conformance document that you had to
pay $$$ for a copy of Sun Studio.)

And I can assure you that Sun Microsystems knew about POSIX.=C2=A0 They
just chose to not include everything required by POSIX.2 in their
default install.

=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2= =A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 - Ted


--
James D. (jj) Johnston

Chief Scientist, I= mmersion Networks
--0000000000004559d405f73837d2--