Re: Proposal for write(1) addition

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 12:19:34AM -0400, Mouse wrote:
> The major one is compatability.  Code that Just Works all the way from
> when ptys were first invented up to now.  Avoiding the "another system,
> another idiosyncratic `you must do *this* dance to make ptys work'"
> #ifdef (or equivalent) hell - worse, in this case, because in addition
> to code authors having to deal with the different API, the end system's
> admin has to get something right too.

I think you are missing a very, very big point. There was no single way
to get a master/slave pty pair without #ifdef magic and consistently
supporting non-suid operation. Before SUS Issue 4, it always was magic
guessing. I think the only Operating System still developed which
doesn't implement the POSIX interface is OpenBSD. There is some
complexity involved, since the interface allows a full implementation
without ptyfs, but the latter kills most of the problems. You are
creating a compatibility problem for something that always was excatly
that.

Joerg