Rocky Bernstein wrote: > On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 4:49 AM, Jim Meyering <j...@meyering.net> wrote: > > Rocky Bernstein wrote: > > Any word on this? > > Hi Rocky, > > Sorry about the extended delay. > Changing su.c like this has really low priority. > > I've looked at your patch and see that it changes the semantics > of su for those who use -l with (-m or -p). > > Before your patch, -l would lead to simulate_login being set even > when -l was specified after an -m-or-p option. > Now, using e.g., "-l -m" evokes a warning but the -l is otherwise ignored. > > Did you intend that? > > I never had a strong feeling on it to the extent that ambiguous behavior > should > be preserved. However much more important is issuing a warning says what's > done > whatever it is and currently, that is not done. I am sensing (but am not > completely sure that) the preferred behavior is to keep compatible behavior > whatever the current behavior is?
That is what I expected, and would certainly require less justification. If you have a good case for making the semantic change, I'm open to that, too. > May as well get this cleared up before another > 1/3 of a year goes by. > > Normally such a change would be mentioned in a ChangeLog entry or commit > log. > > I tried to use the su from coreutils (with or without your patch) > and found that it does not work when it attempts to authenticate. > E.g., it cannot su to any user on this Fedora 17 system. If su > remains so broken that it does not work out-of-the-box on F17, > then it's not worth patching. Remember that I wanted to remove su > from coreutils altogether, and only reluctantly agreed to consider > this change. If someone who cares about su remaining in coreutils > wants to take responsibility for making it usable, that'd be great. > It may be as simple as importing a patch or two from Fedora or Suse. > > If you'd like to pursue your change once su is restored to working > order, please justify or revert the semantic change in your patch, > > Actually, at this point I am loosing interest. You have created a somewhat > unfriendly environment here to work in. Please don't interpret my review delays or my misreading your patch as anything deliberately unfriendly. I've been trying to keep this list as open/accommodating as possible for nearly two decades. I agree that the long delay is off-putting and apologized for that, twice. > I suggest, but leave up to you, whether > to just document the behavior as it is leaving the code exactly as it is. > > starting from the change-set below, which includes the following changes: > > - remove some space-before-TAB in tests/Makefile.am > - remove space-before-semicolon in su.c > - split two longer-than-80-col lines > - remove both \n and trailing "." from two new diagnostics > - adjust NEWS > > Again, if you or anyone reading this can't be bothered to do this, I will also > put this on my "low priority" list. You have in mind what you want to see and > I've been getting this information in drips and drabs which is annoying. If you had read the contribution guidelines in HACKING, you would have known to run "make syntax-check", which would highlighted three of the five issues listed above. > It's now about 5 months since I sent this and only now have you even attempted > to try the patch. (The last correspondence you incorrectly made a denigrating > assumption which just added gratuitous delay.) Most of the stylistic things > mentioned here could have been mentioned a couple of months ago.
