diff is a little diff -- erent

[Doug Denault]

On Wed, 26 Aug 2020, Polytropon wrote:

> On Wed, 26 Aug 2020 01:30:38 -0400 (EDT), Doug Denault wrote:
>> I do wonder why. Who is going to go to the effort to build/install "base"
>> commands as various options are removed/changed? I can't wait to see what
>> happens to cp, grep, find, and awk.
>
> If I remember correctly, grep already is BSD grep (with GNU grep
> being available via ports collection), and the same for awk (and
> gawk respectively). In most cases, the base commands implement
> the set of standard features, while the GNU commands have certain
> GNU extensions added which the standard does not require or even
> specify. This, and the licensing terms (BDSL / GPL) that apply.
>
Thanks, a perfectly reasonable response to my less than reasonable post. 
Lost in my histrionics was my question. We have morphed from, "I will not 
stop you from doing something stupid ..." to We are going to take away
some options that have been there for 25 years (that I know of) because 
"?-----?". Having the blank filled in is what I was going for.

After all these years I do not know which of the scores of commands I use 
are GNU versus BCD. The man pages probably says but I have enough trouble 
remembering all the options in ls, find, and awk that I use, much less 
are they GNU or not. As written in /usr/src, the change seems rather 
arbitrary. My 'real' question: is there a reason to make this change?

_____
Douglas Denault
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doug at safeport.com
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