[ANNOUNCEMENT] Test: grep 3.8 - promotion to current stable

[Brian Inglis]

On Thu, 03 Nov 2022 19:31:27 +0100, Achim Gratz wrote:
> Brian Inglis writes:
>> Suggest that I could come up with a package grep-nowarn which can only
>> suppress the [ef]grep warnings, where the package would install
>> [ef]grep-nowarn, and the postinstall script could rename the
>> distributed shell scripts to [ef]grep-warn, and install alternatives
>> with -warn priority 10, -nowarn priority 20; preremove would reverse
>> the process.
>>
>> Suggestions to accommodate -nowarn from grep package postinstall?
>> I could supply the same postinstall and preremove as -nowarn to check
>> for -nowarn and install or uninstall the alternative.
>>
>> Sequence or timing issues to watch out for during postinstall/preremove?

> As Corinna already said, why GNU suddenly cares so much about strict
> POSIX conformance in this case is puzzling.  If anything they should
> have left the decision to packagers and IMNHO the warning should only be
> presented when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set in the environment, if at all.
> The patch to the wrapper script(s) in question is trivial and several
> Linux distributions have removed the warning already (if you do this,
> also change the interpreter from bash to dash).  Just skip any
> extra packages and do the same.

The issue does not appear to be about POSIX compliance, but that [ef]grep were 
dropped from POSIX before 2008 and declared obsolescent, so the maintainers 
appear to be looking to drop those commands/scripts.

You could perhaps reach out to Eric Blake or Jim Meyering who are in the GNU 
grep contributor lists for rationale.

While Debian and OpenSuSE have reverted that change, Fedora has not in main or 
rawhide.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis			Calgary, Alberta, Canada

La perfection est atteinte			Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter	not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer	but when there is no more to cut
			-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry