On Sun, 2013-12-22 at 00:28 -0600, Robert Qualls wrote: > [...] > open belongs in a separate project for high-level, > user-facing commands that's basically just a bunch of wrappers that > can be easily personalized by users and maintained over time. This > way, the community can have a discussion about what commands should be > kept and how they should be implemented.
Some GNU/Linux™[1] distributions use a parallel mechanism for system-wide customization, update-alternatives, which uses a /etc/alternatives/ directory and symbolic links to activate different system components such as libraries, JVM, /usr/bin commands etc. A danger in customizing shell-level commands is that shell-scripts can become hard to debug remotely and hard to share. I'm personally in favour of keeping xdg-open and not making a grab for "open", because it helps people remember that the user of a script might be running a different desktop environment, and that "xdg-open instructions.txt" might not (for example) bring up gedit by default for them. Others mentioned OS X, but it should be remembered that OS X doesn't support multiple desktop environments in the way that's the entire raison d'etre for the xdg effort... Liam [1] Linux is a trademark of Linux Torvalds. > > I'm currently working on prototypes of some of these, namely: open, > convert (ffmpeg+imagemagick for now), build, download, package > (universal package manager that uses conversion utilities (and maybe > docker?) to install foreign packages). I plan to have something > fleshed out and on github in January or Febuary. Maybe a pretentious > manifesto document. > > Robert Qualls. > > On Sat, Dec 21, 2013 at 10:46 PM, Jerome Leclanche <[email protected]> wrote: > > I have to agree. Regardless of the decision on xdg's side, the > > debian-specific "open" binary shouldn't exist. > > J. Leclanche > > > > > > On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 4:43 AM, Ma Xiaojun <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 4:23 AM, Matthias Klumpp <[email protected]> wrote: > >>> Btw, I don't find "I like open better" a good justification for > >>> dropping it from kbd - you are asking essentially for an API break > >>> which has unforseen consequences if we just swap some binary names on > >>> shell, especially with shell-scripts which are not included in Debian. > >> > >> Given giant API breakage like making sh Dash instead of Bash or > >> probably a init system change someday. I fail to see any reason to cry > >> about this tiny little API change. > >> > >>> Standard is irrelevant here, as it is "just" a binary name, and > >>> popularity is something to argue about. > >> > >> It is "just" a symbol link that exists for no merits. > >> Have you read the open(1) ? > >> Does it encourage people to use "open" at all? > >> The history in the context of 1996 isn't boring, Ah? > >> > >>> I am not the kbd maintainer, so it's up to them to decide a rename (or > >>> more precide, it's upstream's decision). I like "open" for files more > >>> too, but unless kbd is the only user of that command, renaming it will > >>> cause problems. > >> > >> It seems that kdb upstream is not claiming open(1); it's a Debian > >> "extension". > >> http://www.kbd-project.org/manpages/index.html > >> http://sources.debian.net/src/kbd/1.15.5-1/debian/kbd.links > >> > >> xdg doesn't have to claim open(1) overnight either. It's just that the > >> current usage of open(1) is a waste of namespace. > >> _______________________________________________ > >> xdg mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg > > _______________________________________________ > > xdg mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg > _______________________________________________ > xdg mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg -- Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/ Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/ Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml _______________________________________________ xdg mailing list [email protected] http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
