Re: bsdcpio and bsdtar installed by default

[Aleksej Saushev <asau%inbox.ru@localhost>]

  Hello!

Thanks for bringing this up, Joerg, I've just forgotten about it!

Hubert Feyrer <hubert%feyrer.de@localhost> writes:

> Now that there's a freeze/quiet period, it would be nice to honor it,
> and do this for 6.0 (or 5.1). I see too little benefit in
> rushing this in, with this possibly bringing up other issues in
> 5.0 then.

In contrast, I vote for changing this sorry state as soon as possible.

You're so loudly proud, that you have removed GNU tar long time ago,
but let's put shiny pink glasses aside and put it straight.

There's effectively no pax/tar in NetBSD.

You may ask why, here's the reason. Both "pax" and "tar" stand
for archivers. Archiving means preserving information, but
neither pax, nor tar do it. Neither can handle files with
long names, that I meet in wild. Other tools, e.g. ftp(1),
cp(1), mv(1), do pretty fine.

Back in time, I worked on this issue and found that the only
solution is using GNU tar. It is GNU tar, what gives portability
and interoperability, NetBSD tar does not. It simply doesn't work.
Even on NetBSD itself.

If fix is possible, I vote for fixing it as soon as possible.
The state of pax/tar in NetBSD today is unacceptible. I repeat,
effectively there's no pax/tar in NetBSD, I am forced to use
gtar from pkgsrc, there's nothing in being proud of having
no GNU tar in base system currently. It is sad to say, but
this proud is a mere boast.

If this sounds offensive, I apologize. I don't want it,
what I want, is change. If this means replacing what is there
already by another implementation, I vote for it being done
as soon as possible.