From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from adsl-64-171-19-66.dsl.sntc01.pacbell.net ([64.171.19.66]:1723 "EHLO giraffe.giraffe-data.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1422979AbWLURAB (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:00:01 -0500 Message-ID: <80765.bryanh@giraffe-data.com> Date: 21 Dec 2006 16:34:00 +0000 From: bryanh@giraffe-data.com (Bryan Henderson) To: ethanol@armory.com CC: kzak@redhat.com, ams@gnu.org, P@draigbrady.com, acahalan@gmail.com, util-linux-ng@vger.kernel.org In-reply-to: <20061221041033.GB13134@armory.com> (ethanol@armory.com) Subject: Re: splitting util-linux (was: kill) References: <787b0d920612192242x3788f4bfh3be846d4188e3767@mail.gmail.com> <20061220085706.GH5971@petra.dvoda.cz> <45890A78.1030105@draigBrady.com> <20061220104547.GJ5971@petra.dvoda.cz> <20061220214503.0BB4744007@Psilocybe.Update.UU.SE> <20061220235519.GN5971@petra.dvoda.cz> <20061221041033.GB13134@armory.com> Sender: util-linux-ng-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: I have thought for many years that util-linux is obsolete. When it was new, it was a quite helpful distribution of components with which to build a system. Today, we have a plethora of giant Linux distros, sourceforge, and freshmeat. Such things eliminate most of the original value in having one big tarball. In fact, the amalgamation of unrelated tools now causes more pain than convenience, because you often want some parts of the package but not others (as evidenced in the 'kill' discussion). We also seem to have a maintainership problem, since there are people who are willing to maintain some pieces, but less energetic about maintaining the entire package or working through a central bureaucracy. Forking of util-linux is the ideal time to improve this. Just don't fork the whole package; fork the part you're interested in. The discussion I've seen so far shows the interest mainly in the filesystem tools, so maybe we should just have a new linuxfs-util (and use linuxfs-devel mailing list). (Even that would be too big a package for my taste. The Minix utilities should be in a package of their own). -- Bryan Henderson Phone 408-621-2000 San Jose, California