1003.2 Command Groups

[std-unix at ut-sally.UUCP]

From: gwyn at brl.arpa (Douglas A. Gwyn)
Date:     Thu, 8 Jan 87 11:32:58 EST
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.

>From: hoptoad!gnu at lll-crg.arpa (John Gilmore)
>...  Is it going to be possible to sell a
>POSIX system without UUCP?  Ditto for "mail"...

I don't see why these should be mandated when many sites use
superior facilities in their place.  Ditto for the spooler.

>I suggest that "cpio" be excluded.  Maybe they'll stop distributing
>System V on byte-order-dependent cpio tapes if it becomes non-standard.

SVR2.0 was distributed on portable-header cpio tapes.
This is also true of the SVR3.0 source distribution.

>I can't find "dircmp", "id", and a bunch of others in either V7 or 4.2
>so I suspect it is not very portable to assume their existence.

You also can't find a decent Bourne shell in those releases.
The standard should not be weakened unduly to permit existing
inadequate facilities to be advertised as already conforming!

Volume-Number: Volume 9, Number 14