On Mon, May 01, 2006 at 11:15:34AM -0700, Stephen Hahn wrote:

> | 2.3.  Utility parity requirements
> | 
> |     PSARC, in its opinion for PSARC/2005/683 [4 - 5], made policy a
> |     technical requirement that XPG4 and XPG6 extensions be also made
> |     available in the /usr/bin variant of the affected utility.  This
> |     policy is not applicable to the /usr/gnu environment.

It might be useful to say that projects may choose to make GNU extensions
available in the /usr/bin variant, if architecturally acceptable?

> | 2.4.  'g' Prefixing
>   
> |     GNU components that do not conflict with existing or anticipated
> |     components in the system's default commands environment should not
> |     be placed in /usr/gnu, and do not require 'g'-prefixing.

I'm not sure how much PSARC currently looks out for this, but should it
warn project teams adding a new (non-GNU) command to /usr/bin that a
potential conflict might occur should another project choose to integrate
the GNU command?  Or should the answer always be that any GNU command
coming in after a non-GNU command of the same name receive a g-prefix?

> | 2.5.  Manual pages
>   
>       In the interest of reducing manual page scavenger hunts, this
>       proposal recommends the introduction of a new manual page section,
> |     1G, to cover the introduced utilities.  (Sections 1MGNU, 3GNU, and
> |     so forth can be added as necessary.)

Is 1G a typo here, given the use of "GNU" elsewhere?

>   3.  Interfaces
>   
>       /usr/gnu        Directory hierarchy     Stable
>               /bin
>               /sbin
>               /lib
>               /info
>               /etc

/usr/gnu/etc should almost certainly be /etc/gnu instead -- or a symlink to
it -- in case /usr is a read-only filesystem.

One thing I think this case is missing is a suitable definition of GNU.  Is
it specifically a label for the software coming from the FSF?  Or something
endorsed by the FSF as part of the GNU project?  Or generically some
utility that you might expect to find on Linux, but not (yet) Solaris?

One example comes up when looking for naming conflicts between /usr/sfw/bin
and /usr/bin.  The only existing conflict (on snv_36) is "profiles".  The
two versions are used for completely different things -- the one in
/usr/bin is related to RBAC, and the one in /usr/sfw/bin is related to
samba.  Question is -- is samba sufficiently "GNU" for the purposes of this
case?  Should all of samba be left behind in /usr/sfw?  Should only
profiles be left behind?  Should it be moved to /usr/gnu/bin?  Should it be
moved to /usr/bin and renamed to something unconflicting?  Or should we
have a completely new hierarchy?  (I'm not sure I like any of those
answers, FWIW.)

Danek

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