Thinking about more work on 'patch'

M. Warner Losh · *nix forums Guru Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 365

In message: <20020429031029.A55182@dragon.nuxi.com>
"David O'Brien" <dev-null@NUXI.com> writes:
: On Sun, Apr 28, 2002 at 06:31:34PM +0100, Nik Clayton wrote:
: > On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 10:30:25PM -0400, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
: > > Take the patch from OpenBSD or NetBSD, and put it in
: > > src/usr.bin
: >
: > src/contrib/bsdpatch ?
:
: Only if we truely aren't going to add our own tweaks and enhancements.
: Garance certainly made it sound like he was going to add FreeBSD'isms to
: the code. Thus src/contrib/ is not the right place for it.

I'd love to see us not add too many FreeBSDisms to patch, if at all
possible.

Warner

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David O'Brien · *nix forums beginner Joined: 29 Apr 2002 Posts: 1

On Sun, Apr 28, 2002 at 06:31:34PM +0100, Nik Clayton wrote:

M. Warner Losh · *nix forums Guru Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 365

In message: <p0511171db8f1029092b3@[128.113.24.47]>
Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> writes:
: When checking the 'patch' utility while doing the "no newline"
: update, I noticed that both OpenBSD and NetBSD have a number
: of nice updates to clean up parts of the source code. I also
: noticed that both of them have a version of patch which is
: BSD-licensed, apparently because someone got Larry Wall to
: re-license one of the early versions of patch [I am a little
: vague on the exact details there...].

You should send mail to the NetBSD folks. However, my recollection
from their developer list traffic, as well as a hazy conversation I
had with Perry over beers at BSDcon was that they had explicit
permission from Larry Wall to do this. Also, older versions of patch
were not released under the GPL, but something kinda BSD-like. Patch
pre-dated perl, which was Larry's first thing to use the Artistic
license.

: Take the patch from OpenBSD or NetBSD, and put it in
: src/usr.bin (I think theirs are based on patch 2.0.<x>).
: Then add whatever updates the other one has done, and
: then add whatever updates we (as freebsd) have done.

I think that it would be a worthwhile project. I got the impression
from Perry that he'd love to see more cooperation between the BSD
camps and for things like this have one version if at all possible.

: Initially I'd suggest putting it in with 'PROG=bpatch' in
: the Makefile (just so it will not install over the patch we
: presently use), and only switch it to being 'patch' when we
: are comfortable that I have all the pieces in the new version.
:
: Once done, we could then toss both of the other two versions
: into the attic. Is this worth doing?

Sounds good to me. Just make sure that this effort doesn't derail
efforts to MFC the changes to patch that makes it grok the no EOL at
end of file stuff that was just added :-)

Warner

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Nik Clayton · *nix forums beginner Joined: 09 Apr 2002 Posts: 20

On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 10:30:25PM -0400, Garance A Drosihn wrote:

Kris Kennaway · *nix forums Guru Joined: 28 Apr 2002 Posts: 634

On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 10:30:25PM -0400, Garance A Drosihn wrote:

Kelly Yancey · *nix forums beginner Joined: 21 Apr 2002 Posts: 7

On Sat, 27 Apr 2002, Alfred Perlstein wrote:

Alfred Perlstein · *nix forums addict Joined: 19 Mar 2002 Posts: 67

* Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> [020427 19:30] wrote:

Garance A Drosihn · *nix forums Guru Wannabe Joined: 21 Mar 2002 Posts: 190

When checking the 'patch' utility while doing the "no newline"
update, I noticed that both OpenBSD and NetBSD have a number
of nice updates to clean up parts of the source code. I also
noticed that both of them have a version of patch which is
BSD-licensed, apparently because someone got Larry Wall to
re-license one of the early versions of patch [I am a little
vague on the exact details there...].

FreeBSD has the following versions of patch in the src tree:

src/usr.bin/patch (entirely moved into the attic)
src/gnu/usr.bin/patch (what we are actually using as
/usr/bin/patch, it is based on
patch 2.1)
src/contrib/patch (an attempt to bring in a more
recent version of gnu-patch,
namely, version 2.5).

What I'd like to do is something like:

Take the patch from OpenBSD or NetBSD, and put it in
src/usr.bin (I think theirs are based on patch 2.0.<x>).
Then add whatever updates the other one has done, and
then add whatever updates we (as freebsd) have done.

The idea is to end up with a bsd-licensed version which has
all the stuff we're used to, along with all of the cleanup
changes done by NetBSD and OpenBSD. I could also glance at
patch 2.5 and see if there's any particularly attractive
options than it has, and re-implement them (not "copy &
paste them", but rewrite the options to keep a BSD license).

I am in no rush to do this, but does this seem like a
worthwhile thing to do? I would not want to commit
anything to src/usr.bin/patch until I had a pretty good
start on the work, but on the other hand I don't want to
start on the work if no one would want the end result...

Initially I'd suggest putting it in with 'PROG=bpatch' in
the Makefile (just so it will not install over the patch we
presently use), and only switch it to being 'patch' when we
are comfortable that I have all the pieces in the new version.

Once done, we could then toss both of the other two versions
into the attic. Is this worth doing?

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu

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