Re: Question about -dev thread "Introduction of app-alternatives/coreutils"

Michael <[email protected]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:47:17 +0000

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.gentoo.user
Message-ID	<3345353.5fSG56mABF@rogueboard>

On Tuesday, 24 March 2026 13:18:19 Greenwich Mean Time Eli Schwartz 
wrote:
> On 3/24/26 5:58 AM, Michael wrote:
> > Is this uutils adoption being pushed by Canonical?  I've read bug
> > 961068, but other than an unqualified claim of better system
> > security by a passer by, I don't understand why Gentoo is
> > considering its introduction.  Is the aim of the uutils project
> > "... to be able to use the same utils on Linux, macOS, Windows and
> > other platforms" or to ensure "... that scripts can be easily
> > transferred between platforms" something Gentoo devs want to spend
> > their time on?
> 
> IMO -- Gentoo is "considering its introduction" solely because Gentoo
> values user choice, therefore users have the right to experiment, even
> with foolish things that break. And we are NOT doing the work here --
> only reviewing a contributor's work.
> 
> Maybe *the contributor* will get it into a shape we can live with.
> Should we still reject the ability for users to choose?

Good points.  Gentoo is about choice after all and I am grateful for it.

> As Arthur pointed out on the -dev ML, and as I earlier said in IRC,
> there's a difference between "infrastructure for the choice" and
> "actually configuring non-GNU coreutils to be active", and for user
> safety we should package.use.mask the latter to ensure nobody tries it
> without being well aware of the pitfalls.

Right, the choice of something 'better' is of course desirable and this 
may include a compiler of choice for *utils.  I was not questioning devs 
choices, it was a rhetorical question.  I'm just trying to understand 
the claimed value of 'better' of uutils from a user perspective, to 
enable making an informed choice on this matter if/when the time comes.

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