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by mrpippy 4144 days ago
The current one is a derivative of NetBSD's implementation (where it shells out to use a sh builtin)
2 comments
lloeki 4144 days ago
License-wise:

- this piece of code is 2BSD-licensed

- it calls out to /bin/sh

- on OS X, /bin/sh is hardlinked to /bin/bash

- OS X's bash is GPLv2

Forking to shell is the only way to reuse bash's code. More often than not I really wish sh were not bash.

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_ZeD_ 4144 days ago
"Forking to shell is the only way to reuse bash's code."

well, the other obvius way is to license this piece of code as GPLv2.

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yetihehe 4144 days ago
AFAIK this is THE reason for GPL. So that you either release your code and contribute to open source or suffer from slower access methods.
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feld 4144 days ago
The BSDs doesn't ship with bash and their wordexp shelling out to /bin/sh doesn't suffer, so I don't see how this is a reason for the GPL.
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yetihehe 4144 days ago
Probably I've written it not clearly enough: "Reason for GPL not allowing you to use code in your own programs, but allowing use through exec: you either release your code and contribute to open source or suffer from slower access methods."
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feld 4144 days ago
ahh, ok; that's clearer
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tedunangst 4144 days ago
Which would require libc to be GPL, something not even glibc does.
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dxq 4144 days ago
Judging by both the source code and its placement in the repository (gen/FreeBSD/wordexp.c), I'm thinking it's a derivative of the FreeBSD implementation (which may itself be a derivative of the NetBSD implementation, or perhaps the other way around).
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JoachimS 4144 days ago
Yes, the OSX code seems to come from FreeBSD. Here is the FreeBSD version of the source:

https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/blob/master/lib/libc/gen/...

It looks very similar to the current OSX file posted in an earlier comment. Calls /bin/sh too.

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