>it seems like a very good idea to me.  before this change, if I would
>check out a fresh source tree, cd to .../bin/ls, and type "make",
>it would always give an error.  after this change, the same commands
>will build "ls".  this seems like a vast improvement to me.

Actually if you check out the entire source tree then you'll need to live
with it's interrelations in building things (which is why bsd.own.mk checks
and won't set USETOOLS unless you're in a complete source tree).

If you just did

cvs co basesrc/bin/ls

and went in there to make it wouldn't use USETOOLS as it's a standalone
dir at that point (but good luck since the main source tree in so many places
does reachover makes, has lib* API dependencies, etc). i.e. ls may work but
a number of more complex bits will not.

James