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From: Grant Taylor via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] ksh88 source code?
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2021 15:51:29 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <c7cf70cf-17ea-c4db-e4e2-95169665e8e1@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LRH.2.23.453.2112212026560.4901@waffle.shalott.net>

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On 12/21/21 11:23 PM, jason-tuhs@shalott.net wrote:
> As an end user, you would not care.

That tends to explain why I've not personally cared.

> As a vendor or distributor, you would care.  Anyone doing an OS or other 
> software distribution (think the BSDs, of course; but also think Apple 
> or Microsoft) needs to care.  Anyone selling a hardware device with 
> embedded software (think switches/routers; think IOT devices; think 
> consumer devices like DVRs; etc) needs to care.  GPL (or similar 
> "virally" licensed) software carries legal implications for anyone 
> selling or distributing products that contain such software; and this 
> can be a motivation to use software with less-restrictive license terms.

Okay.

My limited understanding is that the GPLed parts of the product must be 
made available.  But I'm not aware that using GPLed parts means that 
/everything/ /else/ must also be made available.

Also, I believe /made/ /available/ means that it must be accessible or 
provided when asked.  Thus it does not mean that the GPLed code needs to 
be shipped with the product.

> I'm aware of a few random features that are in ksh93 but not other 
> shells (random, trivial, example that I saw just today*: "printf 
> %(FORMAT)T"). That said, my first impulse would have been to say no, 
> there aren't any meaningful (technical) advantages to ksh over bash -- 
> except that it seems there's still some amount of active development 
> going on in ksh:

The biggest motivation I had in a previous job was to make sure that my 
account's shell was set to a shell that lived on the root file system.

I could easily have that shell test to see if my preferred shell was 
available and start or exec it.  That way I could still log in if the 
file system with my preferred shell was not mounted.  As if I needed to 
address the underlying issue that was preventing the desired shell from 
being accessible.  E.g. /usr/bin/bash wasn't available b/c /usr wasn't 
automatically mounted at boot.

> So I guess, for some people at least, there are indeed reasons to prefer 
> it, including (according to users in those github issues) performance.

At my last job I helped administer some systems that didn't have any 
shells other than was was in the base OS installation.  (We won't talk 
about why.)

> On the licensing front, the GPL is an issue for bash; but zsh is 
> available as a more modern, fully-featured shell that avoids any GPL 
> issues.  This is why Apple switched the default shell in OSX from bash 
> to zsh: they wanted to avoid the GPLv3.  Previously, they had been 
> shipping the last GPLv2 version of bash, which was from 2006.  According 
> to this blog, they've been avoiding any GPLv3 code and actively working 
> to remove even GPLv2 code in OSX for quite a while:

That makes sense.

> * bash seems to recognize %(FORMAT)T, but only takes epoch seconds as an 
> argument.  ksh93 takes anything vaguely date-like.  zsh and pdksh don't 
> recognize it at all.

Interesting.

Thank you for the informative reply Jason.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die


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  reply	other threads:[~2021-12-24 22:51 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 33+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-12-22 22:43 Warren Toomey
2020-12-22 23:01 ` Clem Cole
2020-12-23  1:29   ` John P. Linderman
2020-12-23 22:57     ` Warren Toomey
2020-12-23  3:30 ` Rico Pajarola
2020-12-23  9:03   ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-12-23  9:14     ` Rico Pajarola
2020-12-23  5:46 ` Scot Jenkins via TUHS
2020-12-23  7:19   ` Efton Collins
2021-12-21 13:55     ` Cyrille Lefevre via TUHS
2021-12-21 16:21       ` Larry McVoy
2021-12-21 16:27         ` Warner Losh
2021-12-21 17:15           ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2021-12-21 17:31             ` Boyd Lynn Gerber
2021-12-21 19:09               ` Richard Salz
2021-12-22  6:23             ` jason-tuhs
2021-12-24 22:51               ` Grant Taylor via TUHS [this message]
2021-12-24 23:15                 ` Richard Salz
2021-12-24 23:34                 ` Michael Huff
2021-12-21 16:42         ` John Cowan
2021-12-21 16:47           ` Chet Ramey
2021-12-21 17:09             ` John Cowan
2021-12-22 11:11           ` Cyrille Lefevre via TUHS
2021-12-21 22:15         ` Thomas Paulsen
2021-12-22  7:44           ` arnold
2021-12-22 14:35           ` Cyrille Lefevre via TUHS
2021-12-22 14:36             ` Chet Ramey
2021-12-23 13:39       ` [TUHS] Bourne shell source code (was Re: ksh88 source code?) Cyrille Lefevre via TUHS
2020-12-23  6:56 ` [TUHS] ksh88 source code? arnold
2021-12-22 14:40 Norman Wilson
2021-12-23 17:23 ` John Cowan
2021-12-23 20:08   ` silas poulson
2021-12-23 19:10 Norman Wilson

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