On Sun, 13 Nov 2022 18:09:19 +0100, Thomas Wolff wrote:
Am 04.11.2022 um 20:27 schrieb Corinna Vinschen:
On Nov 4 13:07, Brian Inglis wrote:
On Thu, 03 Nov 2022 19:31:27 +0100, Achim Gratz wrote:
Brian Inglis writes:
Suggest that I could come up with a package grep-nowarn which can only
suppress the [ef]grep warnings, where the package would install
[ef]grep-nowarn, and the postinstall script could rename the
distributed shell scripts to [ef]grep-warn, and install alternatives
with -warn priority 10, -nowarn priority 20; preremove would reverse
the process.
Suggestions to accommodate -nowarn from grep package postinstall?
I could supply the same postinstall and preremove as -nowarn to check
for -nowarn and install or uninstall the alternative.
Sequence or timing issues to watch out for during postinstall/preremove?
As Corinna already said, why GNU suddenly cares so much about strict
POSIX conformance in this case is puzzling. If anything they should
have left the decision to packagers and IMNHO the warning should only be
presented when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set in the environment, if at all.
The patch to the wrapper script(s) in question is trivial and several
Linux distributions have removed the warning already (if you do this,
also change the interpreter from bash to dash). Just skip any
extra packages and do the same.
The issue does not appear to be about POSIX compliance, but that [ef]grep
were dropped from POSIX before 2008 and declared obsolescent, so the
maintainers appear to be looking to drop those commands/scripts.
This is a usability issue. If upstream thinks they have to do such a
potentially destructive and backward-incompatible change for no other
reason than "is not in POSIX", they can do so, but there's no good
reason the distros who *care* for usability have to do this either.
You could perhaps reach out to Eric Blake or Jim Meyering who are in the GNU
grep contributor lists for rationale.
While Debian and OpenSuSE have reverted that change, Fedora has not in main
or rawhide.
Right, Debian and OpenSuSE revert the change and the BSDs will not break
e/fgrep either, obviously. I doubt Ubuntu will do that. Fedora often
values progress, for a given value of "progress", higher than usability.
They will probably see lots of Bugzillas and user requests in other
forums due to this change and then ignore them. But that doesn't mean
we have to do it.
Again: Egrep and fgrep are used in lots of scripts around the world. A
change like this will have a massive impact for years to come.
So, again, in the name of usability, let's follow Debian and OpenSuSE
here, not Fedora, please.
@Brian, as a grep package maintainer, can you *please* make a trivial
patch to remove the grep crap as Corinna suggested and upload an updated
package *today*, as Jon Turney threatens to freeze the x86 repository
tomorrow?
Successfully deployed from Scallywag and announced.
--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
La perfection est atteinte Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer but when there is no more to cut
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
