Re: GNU/Linux stance by Richard Stallman

Kevin Lentin (kevinl@cs.monash.edu.au)
Tue, 6 Apr 1999 11:05:12 +1000

On Mon, Apr 05, 1999 at 10:18:15AM +0300, Alexander L. Belikoff wrote:
>
> Not sure. Although '--help' and '--version' act as exceptions, they
> also create a rule: every program must identify itself and provide
> some help. After all we are not talking about spiffy copyright string
> here. I think the advantage of making UNIX more user friendly is well
> worth it.
>
> Of course, this will definitely break some pereverted script that
> calls 'true' with the arguments above. :-)

It may not be perverted. What if you have a script that has the option of
excluding a certain command from running (think of the weird stuff in
autoconf) so you use
$(COMMAND) "$@"
a lot in your script and COMMAND="/usr/bin/frob" but if /etc/nofrob exists
you set COMMAND="/bin/true" which effectively turns off $(COMMAND) without
the need for a if/fi block around EVERY call to it and it always succeeds.

Unless someone puts --version into the command line (which may not get
sucked up by your script if the "$@" was a $3 instead!

To me, that doesn't sound like a very perverted situation, but that may say
something about me :-)

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