>>>>> " " == Sam Couter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Goswin Brederlow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: >> PS: Why not change the Solaris version to be compatible with >> the widely used linux version? I'm sure there are more people >> and tools out there for linux using -I then there are for >> solaris. > This is an incredibly Linux-centric point of view. You sound > worse than the BSD bigots. Just as linux-centric as the other way is solaris-centric. Letting an option die out is bad. Changing an option name is evil. Chaning the meaning of an option to mean something else on the fly is pure evil[tm]. I think Debian should patch -I back to the old meaning. If compatibility with solaris tar is wanted, then let -I print a warning that its depreciated. In a few month give an error and maybe in a year adopt a new meaning for -I (if thats realy wanted). > There are many, many, many different unices that are *not* > Linux. You can't hope to change them all to be Just Like Linux > (tm). You'll be lucky if any of them follow Linux behaviour, > rather than the other way around. I don't want to change them but I also don't want to be changed by them in ways that are plain stupid. And the -I just changing meaning without any warning is plain stupid. > Hint: Adopt some cross-platform habits like: "bzip2 -dc > foo.tar.bz2 | tar xf -" > Not only will you then become more immune to changes in > behaviour that was non-standard to begin with, you'll also find > adjustment to other systems a lot easier. <sarcasm> I like systems that don't change on a day to day basis. I don't want "ls *" to do "rm *" tomorrow just because some other unix does it and the author feels like it. </sarcasm> "tar -xIvvf file.tar.bz2" has been in use under linux for over a year by pretty much everybody. Even if the author never released it as stable, all linux distributions did it. I think that should count something. Enough to at least ease the transition. MfG Goswin