Subject: Re: bug#25388: Bug in ls, kills existing scripts reading "ls" -1 as input

From: L A Walsh <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2017 14:53:10 -0800

Eric Blake wrote:
> You're quoting me out of context.

Your context was not clear.

> 
> When coupled with the sentences
----
Your "But" started that sentence responding to my statement.

While you may have thought you included all previous context, 
it was interwoven with my statements, so the context was
muddied.

>> You are making overly broad statements, or, more likely, using
>> indeterminant pronouns.
> 
> That was not my intent.  Email is a lousy medium for communications.
---
	That was how I took it, especially since in other areas
posix has had no problem being more than descriptive.

	As soon as you claimed I was dragging in unrelated items,
I figured out what you had meant.  But the thing about posix only
describing -- which was their original mission statement, to 
becoming a prescriptive body, is more than a bit of a sore spot, especially
since one or more BSDer's have gone off on me in the past about how BSD
won the standards war against SysV, since now the BSD'ers were able to
be a majority in posix and change the standards to along BSD lines
vs. SysV lines.  That made me realize what a waste of energy was
going to go into making bunches of tools incompatible with how they 
have been.  ...And it progresses...  

     I liked BSD, but now I see its followers as more than a bit 
religious, and unwilling to see anyone else's view.  It's probably no
coincidence that Apple chose a BSD-system as their base.

	As for email being a lousy medium... yeah, it's not the best,
but not the worst.  You went off on me because you thought I was changing
ls's historical behavior, when my issue is compounding those incompatibilities
by adding flaky features that can't be cut/pasted into anything.  It's
a poor option to do by default.