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Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:15:02 +0200
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT gnu DOT org>
Subject: Re: which: command not found
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> From: Ivan Shmakov <oneingray AT gmail DOT com>
> Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:46:01 +0700
> 
>  > Alas, many GNU packages abandoned every portability guideline in the
>  > book long ago.  Most of the maintainers behave as if GNU/Linux is the
>  > only system in the world worth catering to.
> 
>  > Just the last week, I needed to craft my own version of `mktemp'
>  > because the Texinfo test suite used it.  `mktemp' is part of GNU
>  > Coreutils,
> 
> 	Though it was added somewhat recently:
> 
> - --cut: coreutils-8.5/NEWS --
> * Noteworthy changes in release 6.9.90 (2007-12-01) [beta]
> 
> ** New programs
> 
> …
> 
>   mktemp: create a temporary file or directory (or names)
> - --cut: coreutils-8.5/NEWS --

That's my point: you need GNU Coreutils to be able to run a test suite
of an entirely unrelated package.

>  > And that's just an example, of which I saw too many in the recent
>  > years.
> 
> 	Well, supporting a single system preasumably requires less
> 	effort than supporting many.  On the other hand, I doubt that
> 	there's a free software package whose maintainers will oppose
> 	any volunteers' effort to improve portability.
> 
> 	If seen this way, it appears that it's the lack of such
> 	volunteers that makes software non-portable.

How hard is it to create a temporary file/directory in a shell script?
Why does that need a volunteer?