Subj : Re: macOS 26
To   : tenser
From : boraxman
Date : Sun Nov 30 2025 00:51:31

On 24 Nov 2025 at 02:54a, tenser pondered and said...
 
 te> On 01 Nov 2025 at 05:43a, apam pondered and said...
 te>  
 te>  ap> And so much of this complexity and newness just seems to me to be new
 te>  ap> the sake of being new. Ubuntu using rust coreutils for example ... wh
 te>  ap> The existing core utils have been worked on for many years and work w
 te>  ap> but rust is the new shiny and we have to port to that to be safe - so
 te>  ap> there's now a bunch of issues with compatibility with new core utils,
 te>  ap> which will be worked out eventually, but for what?
 te> 
 te> I can speak to this a little bit.  Two reasons that I see
 te> initially include a) code quality and maintainability issues
 te> with GNU coreutils, and b) the GNU license.  uutils is much
 te> better code generally (unit tests!!), and certainly easier to
 te> maintain, the project uses modern development practices with
 te> respect to review, CI, and so on.  And the MIT license makes
 te> it much easier to integrate with other projects.
 te> 
 te> The issue with compatibility is real, but I would argue that
 te> in some ways this is good: there are already alternative user
 te> space implementations of the POSIX and Unix utilities (the
 te> BSDs, System V, various commercial Unixes that still exist,
 te> and so on).  Having diversity in this area forces downstream
 te> projects to be a bit cleaner and more disciplined.
 te> 
 te> As for ubuntu switching to uutils?  Meh, I'm ambivalent, but
 te> that's largely because I think that Canonical is run by a loon.
 te> 

I think in some part, the move to Rust is due to zealots who want to control software, or at least, have some more social control.  I don't trust evangelists, and that is with good reason.  Perhaps it is also in part to undermine software freedom?

.... A book in the hand is worth two on the shelf!

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