Re: time to retire sharutils

> Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2025 10:26:41 -0700
> Cc: [email protected]
> From: Paul Eggert <[email protected]>
> 
> Thanks for the sharutils bug reports and patches[1][2][3][4][5].
> 
> Are you actually using sharutils, or merely trying to build it? My 
> impression is that today nobody uses this package, as it's been 
> completely obsoleted by email attachments and other technologies. If so, 
> it's time to retire sharutils rather than continue to maintain it.
> 
> Although I sent email to the sharutils maintainers suggesting this, I 
> got not reply. This is further evidence that it's time to stop 
> maintaining this package.

Allow me to add one data point: I do use sharutils, and their use is
invaluable for my situation.  This package allows me to introduce into
a corporate network source code of packages which I can thereafter
compile and use on systems in that network.  Sending the original
tarball via email doesn't work, because the IT department has a policy
of removing any compressed archives fro email messages.  Sending an
uncompressed tarball is unreliable, because if the source distribution
includes non-text files (for example, images, let alone other
compressed archives) it will also be blocked by the policy.  The
sharutils package solves all that seamlessly and very simply, and has
never failed me.

So anyone who must use GNU and other Free Software packages on systems
under similar policies will have the same problem: importing compiled
binaries, compressed archives, and other non-text files is prohibited,
but sending them as ASCII text is allowed.  Then the sharutils package
is precisely the solution; all you need on the receiving end is a
Posix shell to unpack it, and that is available even on MS-Windows.

Just one data point.

P.S. Of course, I built sharutils (version 4.13.4) 12 years ago and am
a happy user of it since then, so I have nothing useful to say about
building the later versions with the latest GCC.