On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 11:11:22AM -0800, cgd@broadcom.com wrote:
> At Mon, 29 Mar 2004 18:39:50 +0000 (UTC), "Igor Sobrado" wrote:
> > I am seriously considering working on a port of nm(1) and size(1)
> > from OpenBSD 3.5 to NetBSD.  It is nice to know that there are BSD
> > licensed versions of those commands for OpenBSD 3.5.
> 
> Why is this *desirable*?
> 
> There are existing, already-working, versions with very little
> maintenance cost to NetBSD.
> 
> I mean, great, there are versions that are BSD licensed, but
> ultimately for these tools does it matter to have a BSD licensed
> version rather than the GNU one?  In what circumstances?  And (not
> having looked at these versions) does that offset the maintenace
> burden?
> 
> I'd be interested to understand how using non-GNU-toolchain
> implementations of these commands are actually of benefit to NetBSD
> users (and will be anything but a maintenance or compatibility issue).
> 

If all of binutils was redone to be non-GPL'd and was of the same quality
and features that would be one thing. But..to only replace 2 binaries seems
more of a publicity stunt than adding any real value. 

James