Solaris taking over Perl ownership

[Andrew Hamm]

Hi folks

I have recently built a Perl 5.8.5 binary for a new customer. I have made
it install in /usr/bin, /usr/lib etc

As many of you are probably aware, Solaris are supplying and obsolete
version of Perl in /usr/bin/perl etc. As you are may also be aware, it is
an old version - for Solaris 9 you are happily supplied 5.6.1, and for
Solaris 8 you are supplied (I think) approx 5.005.

Now the customer, who self-admittedly has very little UNIX experience, is
saying that Solaris is making threats of withdrawn support if we install a
"non-Sun" version of Perl in the same location; overriding the obsolete
version of Perl supplied by Sun. They are threatening total withdrawal of
support for Solaris, not just "support" of Perl [if the story is to be
believed]

I believe that the customer has talked to an undergraduate teenager on the
helpdesk who is making unofficial policy on the fly. It's also possible
that some member of the customer has invented this story to put up a
roadblock because they want the project to fail.

However, disregarding these latter two possibilities; if Solaris is indeed
making threats of this nature, what would the Perl community think? Has
anyone else heard such outrageous claims from Sun?

I am trying to get hold of a written statement from Sun confirming this
stance, and if I obtain it I will post it here.

 

[Matt Garrish]

Hi folks

I have recently built a Perl 5.8.5 binary for a new customer. I have made
it install in /usr/bin, /usr/lib etc

As many of you are probably aware, Solaris are supplying and obsolete
version of Perl in /usr/bin/perl etc. As you are may also be aware, it is
an old version - for Solaris 9 you are happily supplied 5.6.1, and for
Solaris 8 you are supplied (I think) approx 5.005.

Now the customer, who self-admittedly has very little UNIX experience, is
saying that Solaris is making threats of withdrawn support if we install a
"non-Sun" version of Perl in the same location; overriding the obsolete
version of Perl supplied by Sun. They are threatening total withdrawal of
support for Solaris, not just "support" of Perl [if the story is to be
believed]

You probably should take a look at the following:

http://search.cpan.org/dist/perl/README.solaris

If you take out their version of Perl, you can cause irreperable harm, so
it's very likely that they won't support it. But as the docs say, just
install the newer version somewhere else.

Matt

 

[Andrew Hamm]

You probably should take a look at the following:

http://search.cpan.org/dist/perl/README.solaris

Excellent - thanks for pointing that out. Sadly I do not have access to a
Solaris right now for a rebuild of Perl. I took an opportunity to make a
STANDARD Perl with a few of our standard modules pre-installed and then
grab a tarball. I am pissed at Solaris for trying to way-lay the
/usr/bin/perl, but I see that

You may wish to put your version of perl in the PATH of all users by
changing the link /usr/bin/perl. This is OK, as all perl scripts shipped
with Solaris use an explicit path.

So this is a solution. We supply many customers on many different
platforms, and the need for a standard without obscurity is essential. If
Solaris uses Perl internally, I would expect /they/ should take
responsibility for protecting it with a non-standard install location.
However, the symlink and explicit paths mentioned above does give a
workable solution.

It's ludicrous that an O/S can ham-string individuals who need an
up-to-date version of Perl, or one with certain config options. HP at
least has the grace to supply their ancient 4.036 in
/usr/contrib/obsolete/rubbish or whatever that exact path is

Changing #! lines is a pain in the proverbial when there are many sites.
This is the first time I've heard of the O/S trying to impose rules, but
at least there's a suitable workaround.

If you take out their version of Perl, you can cause irreperable
harm, so it's very likely that they won't support it. But as the docs
say, just install the newer version somewhere else.

Yes. They put into /usr/perl5 when my builds go into /usr/bin and
/usr/lib/perl* so I'm happy. Their precious /usr/perl5 is safe from me.

Thanks again for the pointer. I can use this page of the document in the
power-meeting I'm about to go through ;-) Worst case is to play
chinese-whispers on a phone line to teach them the entire process of
creating Perls - of course they don't allow any kind of dial-in or ssh
access. Oh no. If this document can convince them of the safety of the
install then I have saved a few hours of time that is not free anyway.

 

[David Efflandt]

I have recently built a Perl 5.8.5 binary for a new customer. I have made
it install in /usr/bin, /usr/lib etc

As many of you are probably aware, Solaris are supplying and obsolete
version of Perl in /usr/bin/perl etc. As you are may also be aware, it is
an old version - for Solaris 9 you are happily supplied 5.6.1, and for
Solaris 8 you are supplied (I think) approx 5.005.

Now the customer, who self-admittedly has very little UNIX experience, is
saying that Solaris is making threats of withdrawn support if we install a
"non-Sun" version of Perl in the same location; overriding the obsolete
version of Perl supplied by Sun. They are threatening total withdrawal of
support for Solaris, not just "support" of Perl [if the story is to be
believed]

Not sure what Solaris version (uname -a says SunOS 5.9), but my old
Solaris ISP has 2 versions of Perl currently installed. I have no idea if
the second one is from Sun or simply compiled on Sun.

% /usr/local/bin/perl -v

This is perl, version 5.005_03 built for sun4-solaris


% /usr/bin/perl -v

This is perl, v5.6.1 built for sun4-solaris-64int
(with 48 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)

 

[Andrew Hamm]

Not sure what Solaris version (uname -a says SunOS 5.9), but my old
Solaris ISP has 2 versions of Perl currently installed. I have no
idea if the second one is from Sun or simply compiled on Sun.

% /usr/local/bin/perl -v

This is perl, version 5.005_03 built for sun4-solaris

% /usr/bin/perl -v

This is perl, v5.6.1 built for sun4-solaris-64int
(with 48 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)

My understanding is that Solaris 8 (aka SunOS 5.8) gets 5.005_03, and
Solaris 9 (5.9) gets 5.6.1. From the document Matt suggested, they will
only hang on to the old ones for 1 or 2 new versions of solaris.

Anyway, I've had an amazing surprise - someone at the site has worked out
how to download and build Perl. Customers can achieve this? If they have
got it right then I'm happy as larry. All I'm waiting for is the output of
perl -V to be sure they made the correct config choices; I want it to be
all default except for one leeetle thing.

Anyway, problem solved it seems, but I'll still hurl a boiled egg at the
Sun offices next time I'm in the area.

 

[Michele Dondi]

Changing #! lines is a pain in the proverbial when there are many sites.
This is the first time I've heard of the O/S trying to impose rules, but
at least there's a suitable workaround.

Personally I've never had anything even remotely of vaguely to do with
Solaris. But your claim as is not supported by evidence: everybody can
come up with dozenths examples of osen imposing rules, and that is
reasonable too. However, as of what I'm reading right now, what is
even more reasonable IMHO is Solaris' policy you seem to be so
astonished at.

In fact if I understand correctly they're not taking away your freedom
to install whatever version of Perl you may like, and to use that as
your 'usr/bin/perl'-interpreter. They are only requiring you to avoid
removing the version shipped with the OS, which is quite reasonable if
that's an essential part of the OS iteself.

Also, still if I understand correctly, you should not be urged to
change any shebang line at all. But should you really need to do it,
then it would be much less of a PITA with the help of Perl itself,
wouldn't it?


Michele

 

[Chris Mattern]

Hi folks

I have recently built a Perl 5.8.5 binary for a new customer. I have made
it install in /usr/bin, /usr/lib etc

As many of you are probably aware, Solaris are supplying and obsolete
version of Perl in /usr/bin/perl etc. As you are may also be aware, it is
an old version - for Solaris 9 you are happily supplied 5.6.1, and for
Solaris 8 you are supplied (I think) approx 5.005.

Now the customer, who self-admittedly has very little UNIX experience, is
saying that Solaris is making threats of withdrawn support if we install a
"non-Sun" version of Perl in the same location; overriding the obsolete
version of Perl supplied by Sun. They are threatening total withdrawal of
support for Solaris, not just "support" of Perl [if the story is to be
believed]

He is correct. Overwriting your OS-supplied copy of Perl is very bad
practice; you can break the OS-supplied Perl scripts doing that.

I believe that the customer has talked to an undergraduate teenager on the
helpdesk who is making unofficial policy on the fly. It's also possible
that some member of the customer has invented this story to put up a
roadblock because they want the project to fail.

However, disregarding these latter two possibilities; if Solaris is indeed
making threats of this nature, what would the Perl community think? Has
anyone else heard such outrageous claims from Sun?

I am trying to get hold of a written statement from Sun confirming this
stance, and if I obtain it I will post it here.

There's nothing out of the ordinary or unreasonable about any of this. The
answer, if you want an up-to-date Perl, is to install a second perl
somewhere else, say /usr/local/lib/perl5. Solaris even makes this easy
for you by putting its own perl in /usr/perl5. /usr/bin/perl is a link
to /usr/perl5/bin/perl and all the system scipts go to the native location,
so you can even link /usr/bin/perl to your perl and not break anything.

--
Christopher Mattern

"Which one you figure tracked us?"
"The ugly one, sir."
"...Could you be more specific?"

 

[Tintin]

Anyway, I've had an amazing surprise - someone at the site has worked out
how to download and build Perl. Customers can achieve this? If they have
got it right then I'm happy as larry. All I'm waiting for is the output of
perl -V to be sure they made the correct config choices; I want it to be
all default except for one leeetle thing.

Would installing the latest Perl Solaris package from
http://sunfreeware.com/ be useful for you?

 

[krakle]

However, IIRC (I don't have a box I can check at the moment) on Solaris,
the "system" perl

The what? perl? What's that? You mean Perl.

isn't /usr/bin/perl - instead, /usr/bin/perl is a link
to the "system" perl.

perl? You mean Perl.

You're free to replace the /usr/bin/perl link with
something of your choice, as the Solaris tools will use the real path
to the "system" perl. As long as you keep that perl

^^^ ^^^

Correct those 2 to Perl.

I think SUN did a better job of dealing with perl than many other OSses ^^^

Perl.

Why is the opinion of the Perl community important related to this issue?

And you finally learned

I love the hypocritical Perl community whose corrections of others are
their own mistakes... God bless us...

 

[Tad McClellan]

The what? perl? What's that? You mean Perl.

No he didn't.

perl? You mean Perl.

No he didn't.

^^^ ^^^

Correct those 2 to Perl.

No corrections are needed, since there are no mistakes there.

^^^

Perl.

No, perl.

And you finally learned

No, finally he wanted to refer to the programming language while
earlier he had been referring to the perl binary (the interpreter).

I love the hypocritical Perl community whose corrections of others are
their own mistakes... God bless us...

And I love those anti-community posters who display their ignorance
to thousands of people around the world while trying to sound
authoritative.

There is a FAQ about the difference between "perl" and "Perl" you know.

 

[krakle]

No, he wrote 'perl' and really did mean 'perl', because it is 'perl'.

You need to recheck the FAQ.

perldoc -q difference


s/Correct those 2/It would be incorrect to change them/


And wouldn't it be nice if you checked the FAQ and learned the difference
yourself.



Pot, kettle, black

Perl language. Perl code. perl interputer.

 

[krakle]

There is a FAQ about the difference between "perl" and "Perl" you know.

Did you read them? I was correct.

Perl language. Perl code. perl interputer.

 

[Sherm Pendley]

Did you read them?

Has Tad read the FAQ? You can't be serious.

Perl language. Perl code. perl interputer.

Which is why you were wrong. Each and every instance of "perl" that you
claimed should have been "Perl" was in fact correct, as it was referring
to the *interpreter*, not the language.

sherm--

 

[Sherm Pendley]

The what? perl? What's that? You mean Perl.

No, he means perl. He's referring to the interpreter, not the language.

perl? You mean Perl.

Nope. The interpreter again.

^^^ ^^^
Correct those 2 to Perl.

Nope. The interpreter.

^^^
Perl.

Nope. The interpreter.

And you finally learned

No, he's referring to the language and not the interpreter here.

Krackle, get over yourself. Abigail has nothing to learn from you.
Abigail knew the difference between Perl and perl when you were still
riding the short bus to kindergarten.

sherm--

 

[A. Sinan Unur]

(e-mail address removed) (krakle) wrote in

Perl language. Perl code. perl interputer.

Define iterputer please. I don't think I have ever used one. I don't know
how I ever got by without one seeing as how vital it seems to Perl
programming.

 

[Sherm Pendley]

Define iterputer please.

Never misunderestimate the strength of a nukular interputer. ;-)

sherm--

 

[Peter Wyzl]

Has Tad read the FAQ? You can't be serious.


Which is why you were wrong. Each and every instance of "perl" that you
claimed should have been "Perl" was in fact correct, as it was referring
to the *interpreter*, not the language.

The way I read the original quote this is referring to, the statement is
ambiguous in it's intent, therefore this debate rages more over an ambiguity
in the use of English than the difference between Perl and perl. Abigail
could just have easily meant Perl as perl, and someone who is more familiar
with Abigail would assume that theoretically correct capitalisation would
have been used. Particularly because of the varying capitalisation
throughout the article. However, English can be an imprecise language, and
the post could be read the other way.

Which boils down to this being an argument over semantics, not fact.

Which made even sillier by the following sentence in PerlFAQ 1 which says
"You may or may not choose to follow this usage." before going on to talk of
parallelism.

This has become a holy war over nothing, since it appears some regulars
posters to clpm take the naming significantly more strongly than Larry does.

Notwithstanding which, precision in the computer and technical newsgroups is
highly desirable, and imprecision often the cause of confusion. I consider
myself a case in point several times over.

/rant

Now I'm off to do something more fun...

 

[Arndt Jonasson]

Perl language. Perl code. perl interputer.

What's the matter with you? The name of the program which interprets
Perl code is manifestly "perl", not "Perl". /usr/bin/perl, for example,
or /usr/local/bin/perl, not /usr/bin/Perl. (You can rename it that way,
I guess, but then you can rename it to donaldduck too.)

 

[krakle]

(e-mail address removed) (krakle) wrote in


Define iterputer please. I don't think I have ever used one. I don't know
how I ever got by without one seeing as how vital it seems to Perl
programming.

iterputer? I don't know how you ever got by english class.

 

[Sherm Pendley]

iterputer? I don't know how you ever got by english class.

Are you talking about yourself here? I hope so, because you're the idiot
who can't spell "interpreter".

sherm--