On Tue, 2010-06-08 at 13:03 -0700, Scott Rotondo wrote:
> Several people have pointed out that the harm from removing these
> commands isn't that great because
>
> (a) recent scripts tend not to use this mechanism to figure out the type
> of platform, and
>
> (b) older scripts will still work (with error messages) because a
> missing command evaluates to false.
>
> But what about the other side of the cost-benefit equation? What's the
> upside from removing a handful of tiny files? I'm afraid I don't see it.
Its there:
a) people might decide that these are good tools for portability checks
(they aren't!)
b) people might complain that other processor types are not included,
but we've already said that no new cpu types are getting added
c) therefore, should folks doing new ports create them for arm, s390,
etc.? I hope not!
d) every bit costs something. to compile, to link, to deliver. Just in
the listing of /usr/bin. Anything which serves no useful function
should IMO be removed. (Individually, these costs are minuscule, but
taken collectively over the entire life of a distribution, across
everyone who ever looks at them, has to compile, build or install them,
and across multiple such "trivially useless" projects, the costs can be
much larger.)
-- Garrett
>
> Scott
>
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