Based on the earlier discussion about the migration of /bin/ksh I'm proposing to migrate /bin/sh to ksh93 before /bin/ksh. It may prove to be a simpler work with fewer political obstacles because the feature set of the Bourne shell is smaller than the set of features found in ksh88.
Benefits: * ksh93 as /bin/sh would provide a POSIX compatible shell * Greater interoperability with other operating systems, including Linux * Greater flexibility in script development * Reduced maintenance requirements (only one code base instead of two needs to be maintained) * The project would prepare the path for the larger /bin/ksh migration project The Bourne shell is lacking POSIX conformance and common extensions available on other operating systems makes it a challenge to port even simple applications to Solaris. This is multiplied by the problem that /bin/sh is the default shell for system calls such as popen(3c) and system(3c) or utilities like make(1) which cannot be changed to another shell based on a system wide tunable or other "easy" solutions to work around the limitations of the Bourne shell. ksh93 is open source and will be readily available in Solaris as /usr/bin/ksh93 soon, allowing community members to contribute fixes, resulting in a better quality default shell for Solaris. In addition to many new features, a couple problems already described in the Sun bug database are fixed in ksh93, including: * Bug ID: 4088172 *sh* request to have /usr/bin/sh be a POSIX shell * Bug ID: 6378708 *sh* could implement non-conflicting posix syntax * Bug ID: 6398988 /bin/sh should support $(), just like POSIX Regards, Knut This message posted from opensolaris.org
