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Forget the haters, this is awesome. GNU started as GNU's Not Unix, reimplementing Unix userland for free. The people who are adamant about calling it GNU/Linux

by barakm 11y ago

Forget the haters, this is awesome. GNU started as GNU's Not Unix, reimplementing Unix userland for free. The people who are adamant about calling it GNU/Linux are, on some level, remembering that the userspace is historically a reimplementation. Give me a busybox that I can 'go build' and that becomes really quite interesting.

mixologic 11y ago
Except for the fact that it'll be years before all of the subtle bugs are worked out and you can rely on those apps to be as stable as the ones we've got: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
- eloff 11y ago
  We have years. They're passing whether we like it or not. In the meantime you can choose whichever implementation of the Unix tools that you want. In the future there may be more options that fit the bill, developed in a safe language without the kinds of buffer overflows and things that exist in C tools today.
- danieldk 11y ago
  What's wrong with doing this for fun's sake or educational value (both for the authors or people who want to study Go)? If it turns out to be more widely used, at least it's safer than C code.
- mpweiher 11y ago
  Yeah, just because Joel said so doesn't mean it's true. I've been responsible for a bunch of rewrites that were resounding successes and typically reduced the bug load (subtle or not) by orders of magnitude.
Animats 11y ago
We really need a busybox in Rust or Go. The existing one has licensing problems and security problems, and is built into too many embedded devices.
- ploxiln 11y ago
  Busybox is GPLv2. That's the same license as the linux kernel; it's not a problem. You just have to release your modified version of the busybox source if you distribute it in a product. The only difference is that busybox developers enforce the license against the many companies who can't be bothered and respond to requests with lawyers. That said, a bsd-licensed re-implementation of busybox (still in c) that's pretty far along and has gotten support from some of those companies (including Sony) is "toybox" http://www.landley.net/toybox/ http://www.landley.net/toybox/
  - Fenume 11y ago
    Also, Toybox will replace Toolbox in Android M.
- fapjacks 11y ago
  What licensing problems specifically do you mean here?
- sagichmal 11y ago
  There is a busybox in Go. https://github.com/surma/gobox https://github.com/surma/gobox
beoh 11y ago
https://github.com/surma/gobox https://github.com/surma/gobox

by barakm 11y ago

mixologic 11y ago

Except for the fact that it'll be years before all of the subtle bugs are worked out and you can rely on those apps to be as stable as the ones we've got: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

eloff 11y ago
We have years. They're passing whether we like it or not. In the meantime you can choose whichever implementation of the Unix tools that you want. In the future there may be more options that fit the bill, developed in a safe language without the kinds of buffer overflows and things that exist in C tools today.
danieldk 11y ago
What's wrong with doing this for fun's sake or educational value (both for the authors or people who want to study Go)? If it turns out to be more widely used, at least it's safer than C code.
mpweiher 11y ago
Yeah, just because Joel said so doesn't mean it's true. I've been responsible for a bunch of rewrites that were resounding successes and typically reduced the bug load (subtle or not) by orders of magnitude.

Animats 11y ago

We really need a busybox in Rust or Go. The existing one has licensing problems and security problems, and is built into too many embedded devices.

ploxiln 11y ago
Busybox is GPLv2. That's the same license as the linux kernel; it's not a problem. You just have to release your modified version of the busybox source if you distribute it in a product. The only difference is that busybox developers enforce the license against the many companies who can't be bothered and respond to requests with lawyers. That said, a bsd-licensed re-implementation of busybox (still in c) that's pretty far along and has gotten support from some of those companies (including Sony) is "toybox" http://www.landley.net/toybox/ http://www.landley.net/toybox/
- Fenume 11y ago
  Also, Toybox will replace Toolbox in Android M.
fapjacks 11y ago
What licensing problems specifically do you mean here?
sagichmal 11y ago
There is a busybox in Go. https://github.com/surma/gobox https://github.com/surma/gobox

beoh 11y ago

https://github.com/surma/gobox https://github.com/surma/gobox