Re: mksh import

[Dad - Kent - <pobox0123%hotmail.com@localhost>]

If I understand correctly, I believe someone has suggested that we replace 
the
existing /bin/sh in the base with a more fully featured shell such as ksh93 
/ mksh.
I would second and support such a move. Unless someone can show that
ksh93 / mksh would adversely affect the performance of the system in a 
significant
way then I can think of no reason why this should not be done.  By providing 
ksh93 / mksh
as /bin/sh in the base it provides a guarantee to developers that they are 
able to take
advantage of the most powerful and efficient features that a modern shell 
has to offer.
In doing so NetBSD will be a better system for it.

I would recommend that David Korn's ksh93 be used as the default shell in 
the base.
Mr Korn actively maintains and improves ksh93 and has done so for over 20 
years.
The latest version, ksh93t was recently released. Mr. Korn through his 
involvement with
the Austin / SUS group has gone to great lengths to ensure correct POSIX 
behavior in
ksh93.  Ksh93 has shown itself to be much more efficient than other shells. 
And as
someone has already mentioned, ksh93 is probably the closest thing to a 
defacto
shell as any other shell.

I understand that some people probably want mksh to be used in part because 
it is licensed
under the BSD license. I also would like to see all software released with 
NetBSD under a
BSD license (c'mon CLANG / LLVM!). But having said that, IMO mksh is not on 
par with
ksh93 in performance and it differs from ksh93 in features. At some point in 
the future when
mksh can show complete compatibility with ksh93 and achieve a close 
approximation of
performance then I would think it appropriate to use mksh as the default 
shell in base.

Kent Wilson