Mostly I've avoided this conversation, but I want to inject two cents
here.
First, I'm sorry that Joerg feels that his effort is intentionally being
stepped on. I really don't think that is what is being done here.
There are several different implementations, and they have evolved in
incompatible ways....
Second, I do want to point out, that whether or not the repo is open to
external commits, the nature of the OpenSolaris project is that no one
person has final say... where there are conflicts they will be resolved
by committee (that's the "C" in ARC.)
So, please don't make the mistake of equating the issue here with Sun's
commitment or lack thereof to open source or to community involvement.
Joerg, I know you feel very strongly about your implementation, but you
are not "the community" in and of yourself.
Further, nowhere is it stated that OpenSolaris has as its mission to
remain backwards compatible with unbundled 3rd party programs. star
counts as one of those. If the direction chosen for tar/pax/cpio is
incompatible with star, well, that's unfortunate, but its not a death
knell to either star nor to the OpenSolaris project.
I think you've done the appropriate thing by raising the issue in the
case, but now you need to let the process work it out... and if the
process doesn't come to the result you want, you need to accept that and
move on.
There will be future decisions made by the community, that other people
may not agree with. It happens in any large project. So as engineers
we learn to voice our opinions, hope for the best, and if a different
direction is chosen, deal with it without rancor.
Thank you.
-- Garrett
On Thu, 2007-08-16 at 00:34 +0200, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> "Hugh McIntyre" <lists at mcintyreweb.com> wrote:
>
> > I hesitate to get involved in this discussion, but...
> >
> > > If interface stability is really important for OpenSolaris, then tar(1),
> > > cpio(1) and pax(1) cannot implement an incomatible way of handling the -/
> > > option. The option -/ (introduced in 1994) has the following meaning:
> > >
> > > -/ Don't strip leading slashes from file names ...
> >
> > It looks like GNU tar uses a different option for this behaviour:
> >
> > -P, --absolute-paths
> > don't strip leading `/'s from file names
>
> If GNU tar did not try to be incompatible to star, star could be compatible
> to
> GNU tar.
>
> The option -P is used by star since 1986 for allowing to write the last
> record
> as partial record. A feature that helps to use star together with QIC tapes.
> This
> feature has been added to star before GNU tar esists.
>
> It usually makes sense to watch other implementations of similar programs....
> As GNU tar is deliberately incompatible to star for a long time, I stopped
> however to watch GNU tar.
>
>
> > Presumably any merge of star into OpenSolaris is going to have to evaluate
> > what to do about incompatible options from Classic Solaris/GNU/star at
> > that point anyway. Perhaps something along the lines of:
> >
> > if (argv[0] == "star")
> > getopts(historical_star_options);
> > else
> > getopts(solaris_compatible_settings);
> >
> > ?
> >
> > Hugh.
>
> I recommend you to have a look at the star sources to understand the
> background.
>
> There are special main() programs called suntar.c (may be called as "tar"
> also"), cpio.c and pax.c. These programs have been created in the attempt to
> be
> 100% compatible to the Sun variants of the programs. Now, with this arc case,
> Sun tries to become incompatible to these programs that have been designed to
> be compatible. If this ARC case is approved, it looks like an unfriendly act.
>
>
> > PS: Solaris tar uses "P" for a different path stripping option, of course:
> >
> > P Suppress the addition of a trailing ?/? on directory
> > entries in the archive.
>
> This option has been introduced more than 10 years after star did introduce -P
>
> See above, even for this problem, there is a solution that is working today!
> It will no longer work in case that this ARC case is approved unchanged.
>
> Solaris has become OpenSolaris and OpenSolaris is no longer a Sun only
> enterprise. This ARC case will show whether people at Sun already understand
> the fact that OpenSolaris depends on people outside of Sun that will become
> disappointed in case their interests are ignored.
>
> Making the ON repository writable for people outside of Sun is something that
> taks a long time because many technical things need to be done before.
>
> Understanding OpenSolaris and acting the right way is simple and only needs
> to
> switch minds. It could be done immediately without problems. Understanding
> that
> synergy means benefit for both sides is the first step to create a viable
> OpenSolaris developer community.
>
> J?rg
>
