On 12/20/18 2:40 PM, L A Walsh wrote:
But coreutils already does act differenty based on what local libraries it pulls in at runtime.
Of course, and that doesn't affect the point. From coreutils viewpoint those libraries are part of the system configuration, just as /etc/passwd is, and just as /etc/xattr.conf is.
Coreutils should service the owner of the system.
Of course, and there's already a way to configure them the way you prefer: put wrapper shell scripts in your PATH. And you can simply modify the source code to behave the way you like. So you're asking for yet another way to configure them. We have to balance the advantages of this feature request against the disadvantages. The disadvantages of adding a new way to configure coreutils are that it'll slow the programs down a bit and that it can cause existing usage to go awry. It's not unreasonable to say that these disadvantages outweigh the minor advantage of having yet another way to configure them.
