[indiana-discuss] [osol-discuss] why gnu chmod in os2008.11?

[David.Comay at Sun.COM]

> It would be better to go with the ATT AST tools
> (http://www.research.att.com/sw/download/). AST supports many of the
> BSD and GNU command line options missing in the native Solaris
> userland and conform to POSIX.

If those tools are truly compatible with the GNU variants and track
feature changes with the GNU "upstream" (so to speak), then certainly
they are worth considering.  However, the intent here is to be
compatible/familiar with the vast majority of UNIX-based systems where
new development is taking place.  As far as I can see, those are
GNU/Linux and MacOS X systems.

Although compatibility with current Solaris systems in also very
important, in order for OpenSolaris to survive (and not just stagnant),
it needs to move forward to embrace the audiences not currently using
it.