At 2025-12-13T06:59:49+0700, Robert Elz wrote: > NB: all that is 100% speculation, I have no idea how bash actually > implements any of that (don't bother telling me I can just read the > source, there are reasons that make that impossible).
What might those be? You are implying either that the source code is unintelligible to you, a notion that is presumptively implausible given your background as a Unix developer, or that some force or contractual agreement constrains you from doing so. The FSF's essential freedom #1 is (and has been for decades): >>> The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does >>> your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is >>> a precondition for this.[0] Reading and study are acts constitutive of neither plagiarism nor copyright infringement. Who or what is constraining your freedom to study Bash's source code? I observe that at least one readline clone has been promulgated under a BSD license. Nobody is better situated than Chet to tell us if and how the FSF attempted to shut down any such effort. Closer to my own wheelhouse, Heirloom Doctools troff cloned nearly all of GNU troff's features--into an implementation that is GPL- incompatible, no less (being derived from OpenSolaris,[1] Heirloom Doctools is licensed under the CDDL[2]). I'm not aware that anyone ever even raised an objection to this, and I've read (I think) the entirety of the groff mailing list archives going back to 1999. (OpenSolaris was released in stages in 2005.) Moreover, Carsten Kunze has committed to groff's Git repository as recently as 2016.[3] So, what gives? Do you have a well-founded reason for refusing to study Bash's source code, or have you been drinking from the same pitcher of GPL-hysterical Flavor-Aid as Charles Hannum? Regards, Branden [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html [1] https://n-t-roff.github.io/heirloom/doctools.html [2] https://github.com/n-t-roff/heirloom-doctools?tab=License-1-ov-file [3] https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/commit/?id=08926c0eb07f421338e2dfe248ec006e3c7da367
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