Adding a simple editor to the base system

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

        This was originally brought up on netbsd-desktop, now
        redirected here as a more relevant forum.

        I'd like to propose we add a simple text editor to the base
        system. The obvious candidate is 'ee' from FreeBSD (who
        have been including it since 1995).

        Its in pkgsrc as editors/easyedit. Its not too big (56K
        stripped on i386), only links against libc & curses, and
        needs no other files (apart from termcap). The version in
        pkgsrc includes its own curses library which takes its
        stripped size to 78K.  I'm mentioning stripped as its the
        relevant minimum size for anyone who might want to add it
        to a crunchgen ramdisk.

        I'm proposing it be added to base rather than pkgsrc to
        ensure it is available on all standard NetBSD systems.
        So for example a user who is not experienced with vi can
        edit a configuration file before setting up their desktop
        or preferred editor, or even if they find themselves in
        single user mode.

        I think we should be including ee, and updating our
        documentation to mention it as the suggested editor for
        new users. I use vi as my editor of choice, but it is
        unreasonable to expect a new user to sit down and learn vi
        before they can even edit their rc.conf to enable ssh.

        I believe there should be a high barrier for adding another
        program to the base system, and I think any such program
        should be decided on its individual merits. In my opinion
        the above reasons justify its inclusion

        It was available under a variation of the Perl Artistic
        licence. I emailed the author asking if he would be willing
        to also licence it under two clause BSD style. and he
        promptly responded and released a new version with that
        change:  http://mahon.cwx.net/sources/ee-1.4.7.src.tgz

        Since FreeBSD have some useful changes on their end too
        I'm going to see if they are planning on merging to the
        latest version. The author is also looking at merging
        in the FreeBSD changes into his master sources.

        One configuration question on ee is the keybindings.
        It has its own default bindings, or can use emacs
        bindings:
        http://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=ee#2

        I'm inclined to suggest emacs bindings, just as they are
        more commonly used.


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