[ITP] util-linux

[Charles Wilson]

Christopher Faylor wrote:
> What problem are we trying to solve here?
> 
> I thought that we resolved a long time ago that we were going to use
> cygutils and pull things into it from util-linux as needed.

I believe that's the current operating assumption, mainly because when I 
  first created cygutils (known as 'misc' at the time), I simply snarfed 
most of its contents from util-linux, and hacked them up to remove the 
internal references to shipped-along gettext use instead the 
system-installed libintl3 instead, and various other changes.

Thus, since much of util-linux ended up in cygutils, inertia sez "keep 
using cygutils".

However, these util-linux "ports" represent a fork from the "official" 
util-linux sources.

> I don't see any compelling reason to change this behavior.  Am I missing
> something?

Well, the compelling reason is to un-fork.  I don't track util-linux 
changes -- but then, there haven't been any complaints about "why is 
col.exe out of date" so far.  Plus, even if you strip out all of the 
apps in the OP's package that compile-but-do-not-work, you're still left 
with a list bigger than what is currently available in cygutils (I think).

Two choices: "port" these (few?) additional programs to cygutils (e.g. 
so they too link against installed libintl3, use #include <common.h> 
which is properly autoconf-guarded instead of hard-including a bunch of 
stuff, etc).  Or, remove the current versions from cygutils and let the 
OP take 'em.

I honestly don't care.  Removing stuff from cygutils is easy; adding 
stuff to cygutils -- assuming I'm handed a patch to do so -- is also 
easy (for me).  Creating that patch, to do the things mentioned in the 
preceeding paragraph and outlined in 
/usr/share/doc/cygutils-1.2.10/HOW-TO-CONTRIBUTE is a bit harder.

So, the big question here is: exactly how many new utilities are we 
talking about here, that actually *work* on cygwin (rather than just 
compile)?  5?  10?  1?  Dunno -- the OP will have to answer that.  Then 
we can have a more informed discussion.

--
Chuck