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Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 13:59:21 -0500
From: Charles Wilson <cwilson AT ece DOT gatech DOT edu>
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To: cygwin-apps AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Link for MORE
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Christopher Faylor wrote:


> If someone wants to contribute, I think it should just be a standard
> package.
> 
> Chuck, I hate to say this, but I don't see a real reason for growing
> cygutils.  The more packages we add to cygutils, the more we go back to
> the old way of installing cygwin packages -- with less fine-grained
> control.


A very good point.  This is why both of the latest additions to cygutils 
were 'vetted' on the list before I added them:

mkshortcut:  recall the big discussion about whether it should be added 
to winsup/utils or cygutils...

cygstart: this was also thrashed out on the list...although discussion 
centered on whether it should be called 'start' or 'cygstart' -- but the 
idea that it should be added to cygutils was part of the ongoing 
discussion (nobody objected, so...)

However, perusing the code it appears that "more" is fairly complex 
(even if it is all contained in a single file).  For some reason, it 
offends my sensibilities to create a giant autotool'ed project with all 
the overhead (INSTALL, configure.ac, configure, Makefile.am, 
mkinstalldirs, ...) for just a single-file program.  OTOH, turning 
cygutils into full.exe isn't a good idea, either.

It makes more sense to answer the "Where's more?" question with "In the 
'more' package" than "In the cygutils package".  So, in this case I 
think you are right.


> Maybe there is a good reason to have a general purpose utils package
> that I'm missing.  It just seems to me that this is adding a focus for
> the cygwin package release on you -- a single point of contact.
> Theoretically, we could be sharing the load if the contributed pieces of
> cygutils were made into true cygwin packages.


I have no objection if the original contributors want to take the 
cygutils source package, rip out everything that isn't (for instance) 
'mkshortcut'-related, and release a standalone autotool'ed mkshortcut. 
(However, I'm not pushing for that.)

Tell you what, Chris:  unless it is a single-source-file program that I 
personally wrote or ported, I won't add anything else to cygutils unless 
it meets with list approval (heck, that was pretty much my modus 
operandi, anyway).

--Chuck