David Korn <dgk at research.att.com> wrote:
> > do not really make me trust in the stability of ksh93.
> Should you trust the stability of any software? To a large extent, it
> depends on the regression test suite. Do you trust the stability
> of cc or gcc? Should you stick to one version forever? Should you not
> bring in new features to the language? What if standards bodies
> dictate changes?
I see both significant enhancements and bug fixes mixed in
ksh93 development. As a result, it is possible that enhancements
introduce new bugs, even in areas which are not directly affected.
This is why critical projects like gcc usually have both experimental
and stable branches.
> > > - Greater interoperability between operating systems: Currently Linux
> > > and some of the other Unix derivates (AFAIK AIX) ship ksh93 as
> > > /usr/bin/ksh
> > This is not an issue in my opinion. For a complex shell script,
> > it is relatively easy to also create an installation script which
> > finds a matching shell.
> Maybe it is easy for you, but this has not been our experience.
> I suspect that Glenn Fowler has many war stories in dealing
> with the shells on about 40 different systems.
It obviously depends on the shell features one actually uses.
In any case, it is trivial to check for /usr/bin/ksh93, which
was the point in question.
> > > - There would be no need to make the old ksh88 OpenSource (which also
> > > means: Less work for the lawyers... :-) ).
> > I do not understand that issue anyway. As far as I know, ksh93
> > is a derivative of the ksh88 code. If AT&T allows to ship the
> > ksh93 code, why would there any legal reason not to ship the
> > ksh88 code? Or is there rather another reason behind this?
> The ksh88 code has never been made Open Source and given the effort
> for ksh93, there seems to be little incentive to do so.
> I beleive that there are three organizations that have the
> right to make ksh88 open source but so far none have
> chosen to do so.
Doesn't the fact that ksh93 has already been released make
things easier for ksh88?
Gunnar
