On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, David Laight wrote:

> > Will someone fix sysutils/sh-utils so uname is built and installed?
> >
> > It works fine under NetBSD:
>
> Which feature of it do you need on NetBSD?

My point is that its uname works. (I don't need it with NetBSD, but I may
need it on another OS.)

> > Here's a patch (which also includes longer DESCR -- I wonder if that part
> > that indicates that these GNU tools are better is necessary):
> <snip>
> >  These are the GNU shell utilities.  Most of these programs have
> >  significant advantages over their Unix counterparts, such as
> >  greater speed, additional options, and fewer arbitrary limits.
>
> Sounds a dubious claim to me, it should probably add they they
> are not posix compliant, and that the use of non-standard options
> in scripts will make the scripts non-portable.

I agree. Note that the claims were not mine.

> > +This package includes essential tools (and corresponding manuals)
> > +for: basename, chroot, date, echo, env, hostname, nice, nohup, id,
> > +printf, pwd, sleep, stty, tee, test, uname, who, whoami, yes, true
> > +and false, and a few other commands.
>
> IMHO You really don't want the gnu versions of some of those in preference
> to the system ones - you could be asking for trouble.

Probably true. Anyways, I use these tools (including uname) installed via
pkgsrc under another OS.

   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://bsd.reedmedia.net/