On Mon February 11 2008 03:39:06 Bas Wijnen wrote: > > Why do you believe it is better for Debian to harm millions of Debian > > users rather than simply using #!/bin/sh.minimal within Debian scripts? > > Because that's what Debian does: we fix things, even when they work > while they are broken. A script which says #!/bin/sh, but which really > needs bash, is a bug. Debian doesn't want those bugs. This means a > transition which is some work, but we'll do it. Admins who wrote their > own shellscripts may also need to check if they still work. If they > don't trust it, then they should just set their shell to bash again. > Admins who maintain a system that cannot afford some downtime, and who > refuse to read the release notes when upgrading... well, they deserve > what they get, I think.
Debian has a policy which allows it to inflict this change on DD's, but it is perfectly reasonable for Debian users to have determined that /bin/sh was linked to bash and for Debian users to assume that /bin/sh will not be changed for no good reason. Furthermore, many tiny shell scripts are written by marginally technical people, perhaps by copying and adapting something from a book or web page, and they have no conception of the existence of different shell dialects and would not think kindly of a distro that broke their little jewels for no good reason. DD's are welcome to spend as much effort as they choose in fixing this non-bug in their own scripts, but sabotaging the millions of tiny scripts written by Debian users is counter-productive, can only harm Debian's reputation, and has no upside whatsoever. Debian should use #!/bin/sh.minimal for its own scripts and not wantonly break users' scripts; should not wantonly waste users' time in reviewing, repairing, and retesting working scripts; and should not wantonly cause outages, data loss, and data corruption - all of which are guaranteed in large numbers because even the best of programmers make some mistakes and a lot of tiny shell scripts in the big wide world are written by people who are not the best of programmers. --Mike Bird -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
