[arch-general] Opinions on PowerShell?

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[arch-general] Unable to release...

Hunter Connelly

18 Aug 2016 18 Aug '16

11:30 p.m.

Recently, Microsoft released the source code for PowerShell under the MIT license. Here's the link for that. https://github.com/powershell/powershell I was wondering what you guys thought about it. Specifically, if any of you will be using it, if you think it should be in the main repos, what this might mean for the future, etc.

Show replies by date

Kyle Terrien

19 Aug 19 Aug

12:35 a.m.

On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 19:30:27 -0400 Hunter Connelly via arch-general wrote:

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https://github.com/powershell/powershell

I was wondering what you guys thought about it. Specifically, if any of you will be using it, if you think it should be in the main repos, what this might mean for the future, etc.

I haven't used PowerShell much. But in briefly looking at it, the commands are very verbose compared to Unix/Linux. E.g. grep is something like Get-Item. My Windows survival kit currently consists of Cygwin, which still kicks butt to this day. You could even run a full X server under Cygwin. --Kyle -- The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows. - Frank Zappa

Eli Schwartz

1 a.m.

On 08/18/2016 08:35 PM, Kyle Terrien via arch-general wrote:

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I haven't used PowerShell much. But in briefly looking at it, the commands are very verbose compared to Unix/Linux. E.g. grep is something like Get-Item.

My Windows survival kit currently consists of Cygwin, which still kicks butt to this day. You could even run a full X server under Cygwin.

This. Absolutely this. Why would anyone want to use an overly-verbose scripting language like PowerShell as an interactive shell, **unless it was their only option**? I am sure someone will package it in the AUR. And I am sure some people will actually use it -- probably just because they have legacy PowerShell scripts/experience and/or they are interfacing with Windows. But I don't see it being very popular, and certainly not enough to be sponsored in the main repos. -- Eli Schwartz

Kyle Terrien

1:25 a.m.

On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 21:00:33 -0400 Eli Schwartz via arch-general wrote:

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On 08/18/2016 08:35 PM, Kyle Terrien via arch-general wrote:

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I haven't used PowerShell much. But in briefly looking at it, the commands are very verbose compared to Unix/Linux. E.g. grep is something like Get-Item.

My Windows survival kit currently consists of Cygwin, which still kicks butt to this day. You could even run a full X server under Cygwin.

This. Absolutely this.

Why would anyone want to use an overly-verbose scripting language like PowerShell as an interactive shell, **unless it was their only option**?

If you think PowerShell is bad, you should try batch. ;-) If I remember correctly, there aren't even structured if statements. There is reason why PowerShell was invented: batch stunk so badly. --Kyle -- The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows. - Frank Zappa

Hunter Connelly

1:28 a.m.

On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 09:00:33PM -0400, Eli Schwartz via arch-general wrote:

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Why would anyone want to use an overly-verbose scripting language like PowerShell as an interactive shell, **unless it was their only option**?

While I tend to prefer Unix-style shells, there are *some* things that PowerShell does better. Here's an example I found on Reddit in the thread about this on /r/linux. Both of the following commands find the size and name of the three largest files in a directory. Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3 PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3 What seems to be the most noticable difference is that PowerShell, being an object-oriented language, pipes objects instead of raw text. I think this might make many things easier while writing scripts.

Eli Schwartz

1:49 a.m.

On 08/18/2016 09:28 PM, Hunter Connelly via arch-general wrote:

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While I tend to prefer Unix-style shells, there are *some* things that PowerShell does better.

Here's an example I found on Reddit in the thread about this on /r/linux. Both of the following commands find the size and name of the three largest files in a directory.

Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3 PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3

What seems to be the most noticable difference is that PowerShell, being an object-oriented language, pipes objects instead of raw text. I think this might make many things easier while writing scripts.

Excellent, let us programmatically parse the contents of `ls`! What, exactly, is wrong with the bash command: find . -maxdepth 1 -printf '%s %p\n'|sort -nr|head -3 I will agree that if your godawful bash command was what you had to compare to PowerShell, then PowerShell would be better... But by all means, pick and choose, then compare bad bash to good PowerShell if you feel it makes your point better. As for objects, if you feel you need them you are probably doing something complex enough to justify an actual scripted programming language e.g. Python. But I doubt you have that great a need for an interactive shell. -- Eli Schwartz

Lee Burton

5:29 a.m.

It's always been my opinion that PowerShell (powerscript?) has been poorly named -- it's a lackluster /shell/ although things like psreadline,powershell_ise,etc make it less awful as a shell on windows but it's great as interpreted (ish -- see DLR/JIT) .NET -- you can compile C# inside of it or call any .NET library you have laying around. It is a scripted programming language .. comparing soley to zsh/bash is a bit like comparing zsh/bash to python/irb with some shortcuts/syntax sugar to make it more "shell"-like. Lee On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 6:49 PM, Eli Schwartz via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

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While I tend to prefer Unix-style shells, there are *some* things that PowerShell does better.

Here's an example I found on Reddit in the thread about this on /r/linux. Both of the following commands find the size and name of the three largest files in a directory.

Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3 PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3

What seems to be the most noticable difference is that PowerShell, being an object-oriented language, pipes objects instead of raw text. I think

On 08/18/2016 09:28 PM, Hunter Connelly via arch-general wrote: this might

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make many things easier while writing scripts.

Excellent, let us programmatically parse the contents of `ls`!

What, exactly, is wrong with the bash command: find . -maxdepth 1 -printf '%s %p\n'|sort -nr|head -3

I will agree that if your godawful bash command was what you had to compare to PowerShell, then PowerShell would be better...

But by all means, pick and choose, then compare bad bash to good PowerShell if you feel it makes your point better.

As for objects, if you feel you need them you are probably doing something complex enough to justify an actual scripted programming language e.g. Python. But I doubt you have that great a need for an interactive shell.

-- Eli Schwartz

Dave T

4:18 a.m.

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PowerShell, being an object-oriented language

When we need an object oriented language for administering (or scripting) Arch , why not use Python (or one of our other OO options)? Is there any strong use case for PowerShell on Arch given the tools that are already available? I only see one use case: Azure. MS need PowerShell to run on Linux on Azure. Therefore, I think you need to ask your question to the right audience -- people who use Azure. Some Arch people apparently do. Archlinux on Azure | Inside Out http://codito.in/archlinux-on-azure/ Arch Linux on Microsoft Azure https://gist.github.com/z3ntu/e2750efd7f0b93ab3427f097de3fbefa Archlinux on Azure | Inside Out http://codito.in/archlinux-on-azure/ On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 9:28 PM, Hunter Connelly via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

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On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 09:00:33PM -0400, Eli Schwartz via arch-general wrote:

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Why would anyone want to use an overly-verbose scripting language like PowerShell as an interactive shell, **unless it was their only option**?

While I tend to prefer Unix-style shells, there are *some* things that PowerShell does better.

Here's an example I found on Reddit in the thread about this on /r/linux. Both of the following commands find the size and name of the three largest files in a directory.

Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3 PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3

What seems to be the most noticable difference is that PowerShell, being an object-oriented language, pipes objects instead of raw text. I think this might make many things easier while writing scripts.

Christian Hesse

5:16 a.m.

Hunter Connelly via arch-general on Thu, 2016/08/18 21:28:

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On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 09:00:33PM -0400, Eli Schwartz via arch-general wrote:

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Why would anyone want to use an overly-verbose scripting language like PowerShell as an interactive shell, **unless it was their only option**?

While I tend to prefer Unix-style shells, there are *some* things that PowerShell does better.

Here's an example I found on Reddit in the thread about this on /r/linux. Both of the following commands find the size and name of the three largest files in a directory.

Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3

...

PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3

What seems to be the most noticable difference is that PowerShell, being an object-oriented language, pipes objects instead of raw text. I think this might make many things easier while writing scripts. --

ls -1 --sort=size | head -n3 main(a){char*c=/* Schoene Gruesse */"B?IJj;MEH" "CX:;",b;for(a/* Best regards my address: */=0;b=c[a++];) putchar(b-1/(/* Chris cc -ox -xc - && ./x */b/42*2-3)*42);}

Jeroen Mathon

5:20 a.m.

To be honest. I think that Bash is way more useful for sys admin work. Shipping PowerShell to linux will be a total disaster. On Fri, 19 Aug 2016, 07:17 Christian Hesse, wrote:

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On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 09:00:33PM -0400, Eli Schwartz via arch-general wrote:

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Why would anyone want to use an overly-verbose scripting language like PowerShell as an interactive shell, **unless it was their only

Hunter Connelly via arch-general on Thu, 2016/08/18 21:28: option**?

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While I tend to prefer Unix-style shells, there are *some* things that PowerShell does better.

Here's an example I found on Reddit in the thread about this on /r/linux. Both of the following commands find the size and name of the three

largest

...
files in a directory.

Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3

ls -1 --sort=size | head -n3

...
PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3

What seems to be the most noticable difference is that PowerShell, being an object-oriented language, pipes objects instead of raw text. I think this might make many things easier while writing scripts. -- main(a){char*c=/* Schoene Gruesse */"B?IJj;MEH" "CX:;",b;for(a/* Best regards my address: */=0;b=c[a++];) putchar(b-1/(/* Chris cc -ox -xc - && ./x */b/42*2-3)*42);}

Kwang Moo Yi

9:25 a.m.

On 08/19/2016 07:20 AM, Jeroen Mathon via arch-general wrote:

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Shipping PowerShell to linux will be a total disaster.

Why would it be a disaster? One more option for Linux that is totally up to the user's freedom to choose. I would personally never use it, but it's nice that now I can *choose* to not use it. and +1 for it the powershell not treating powershell as an exception. Let it go through AUR. Cheers, Kwang

Jeroen Mathon

9:39 a.m.

In that perspective its ok, but im sure that almost noone is going to use it. Using powershell as your default shell will be a total disaster. A lot of standard scripts will not function correctly. On 19-08-16 11:25, Kwang Moo Yi via arch-general wrote:

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On 08/19/2016 07:20 AM, Jeroen Mathon via arch-general wrote:

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Shipping PowerShell to linux will be a total disaster.

Why would it be a disaster? One more option for Linux that is totally up to the user's freedom to choose. I would personally never use it, but it's nice that now I can *choose* to not use it.

and +1 for it the powershell not treating powershell as an exception. Let it go through AUR.

Cheers, Kwang

Tinu Weber

9:52 a.m.

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 11:39:11 +0200, Jeroen Mathon via arch-general wrote:

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Using powershell as your default shell will be a total disaster.

A lot of standard scripts will not function correctly.

Scripts are supposed to have a shebang, so I don't exactly get your problem. People are also using fish, whose syntax is quite a bit different, and they don't seem to have any issues either (apart from the locale part, but that's something different).

Jeroen Mathon

9:59 a.m.

Will that shebang work correctly with powershell? On 19-08-16 11:52, Tinu Weber wrote:

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Using powershell as your default shell will be a total disaster.

A lot of standard scripts will not function correctly. Scripts are supposed to have a shebang, so I don't exactly get your

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 11:39:11 +0200, Jeroen Mathon via arch-general wrote: problem.

People are also using fish, whose syntax is quite a bit different, and they don't seem to have any issues either (apart from the locale part, but that's something different).

Ismael Bouya

10:02 a.m.

(Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 11:59:00AM +0200) Jeroen Mathon via arch-general :

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Will that shebang work correctly with powershell?

This is the os's job, not bash's or powershell's, to work correctly with shebang. From the shell point of view a script is no different to a binary, as long as it is executable. If you try to source it, it's another problem of course. -- Ismael

Joerg Schilling

10:08 a.m.

Jeroen Mathon via arch-general wrote:

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A lot of standard scripts will not function correctly.

The same applies if you install "csh" as your shell. UNIX allows you to shoot you into your foot if you like. Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.net (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'

Joerg Schilling

10:21 a.m.

Hunter Connelly via arch-general wrote:

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Here's an example I found on Reddit in the thread about this on /r/linux. Both of the following commands find the size and name of the three largest files in a directory.

Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3 PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3

If it overlays standardized behavior by non-standard behavior, this would indeed be a strong afrument against it. Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.net (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'

Stephen E. Baker

1:27 p.m.

On 8/19/2016 6:21 AM, Joerg Schilling wrote:

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Hunter Connelly via arch-general wrote:

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Here's an example I found on Reddit in the thread about this on /r/linux. Both of the following commands find the size and name of the three largest files in a directory.

Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3 PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3 If it overlays standardized behavior by non-standard behavior, this would indeed be a strong afrument against it.

Jörg

By default PowerShell comes preconfigured with aliases that match the familiar names of unix programs that approximately describe the PowerShell equivalents. Sometimes these aliases are more accurate than others, e.g. ls => Get-Items is fairly reasonable, other times the aliases are terribly misleading, like curl => Invoke-WebRequest. PowerShell also interacts poorly with traditional text based unix programs (and windows programs for that matter). It is definitely best treated like a python shell, interacting with other powershell commandlets, modules, and .NET libraries. As a PowerShell user, it certainly has it's place, but it's place is pretty niche in the linux world, so +1 for the AUR.

Mauro Santos

2:28 p.m.

On 19-08-2016 14:27, Stephen E. Baker via arch-general wrote:

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As a PowerShell user, it certainly has it's place, but it's place is pretty niche in the linux world, so +1 for the AUR.

Given that it comes from Microsoft they must have some agenda to fulfill, I'd rather not touch this even with a 10 foot pole, just like I try to stay away for other MS products as much as I can. The AUR is where it should stay, but even then they can spin it as PR fodder just like canonical spun snappy coming to Arch Linux. Make no mistake, they are after profits and do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing, all their friendliness to linux and open source is tainted with patent attacks behind the curtain. The next time the leadership changes there is no guarantee that this new found friendliness isn't going to change. -- Mauro Santos

Jeroen Mathon

2:30 p.m.

This, just this. is exacly why i also avoid microsoft shitware. On 19-08-16 16:28, Mauro Santos via arch-general wrote:

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As a PowerShell user, it certainly has it's place, but it's place is pretty niche in the linux world, so +1 for the AUR. Given that it comes from Microsoft they must have some agenda to fulfill, I'd rather not touch this even with a 10 foot pole, just like I

On 19-08-2016 14:27, Stephen E. Baker via arch-general wrote: try to stay away for other MS products as much as I can. The AUR is where it should stay, but even then they can spin it as PR fodder just like canonical spun snappy coming to Arch Linux.

Make no mistake, they are after profits and do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing, all their friendliness to linux and open source is tainted with patent attacks behind the curtain. The next time the leadership changes there is no guarantee that this new found friendliness isn't going to change.

Lee Fuller

2:30 p.m.

I couldn't have put it better myself, Mauro. *Kind Regards,Lee Fuller* *PGP Fingerprint https://leefuller.io/pgp/: * 4ACAEBA4B9EE1B3A075034302D5C3D050E6ED55A On 19 August 2016 at 15:28, Mauro Santos via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

...

On 19-08-2016 14:27, Stephen E. Baker via arch-general wrote:

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As a PowerShell user, it certainly has it's place, but it's place is pretty niche in the linux world, so +1 for the AUR.

Given that it comes from Microsoft they must have some agenda to fulfill, I'd rather not touch this even with a 10 foot pole, just like I try to stay away for other MS products as much as I can. The AUR is where it should stay, but even then they can spin it as PR fodder just like canonical spun snappy coming to Arch Linux.

Make no mistake, they are after profits and do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing, all their friendliness to linux and open source is tainted with patent attacks behind the curtain. The next time the leadership changes there is no guarantee that this new found friendliness isn't going to change.

-- Mauro Santos

Lee Fuller

2:58 p.m.

Mauro - Could I please quote you verbatim in a post on my personal website? It' gets very little traffic and so there's nothing really for you to gain, but I simply couldn't write anything better and feel that your quote summarises my own view on the news. The address is https://leefuller.io - please let me know if it's okay and whether you have a website address or any specific information you'd like me to include. I'd typically link to the mailman archive page for this thread. Thanks very much, sorry if I've drawn your attention away from something more important. Regards *Kind Regards,Lee Fuller* *PGP Fingerprint https://leefuller.io/pgp/: * 4ACAEBA4B9EE1B3A075034302D5C3D050E6ED55A On 19 August 2016 at 15:28, Mauro Santos via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

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On 19-08-2016 14:27, Stephen E. Baker via arch-general wrote:

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As a PowerShell user, it certainly has it's place, but it's place is pretty niche in the linux world, so +1 for the AUR.

Given that it comes from Microsoft they must have some agenda to fulfill, I'd rather not touch this even with a 10 foot pole, just like I try to stay away for other MS products as much as I can. The AUR is where it should stay, but even then they can spin it as PR fodder just like canonical spun snappy coming to Arch Linux.

Make no mistake, they are after profits and do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing, all their friendliness to linux and open source is tainted with patent attacks behind the curtain. The next time the leadership changes there is no guarantee that this new found friendliness isn't going to change.

-- Mauro Santos

Mauro Santos

3:17 p.m.

On 19-08-2016 15:58, Lee Fuller via arch-general wrote:

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Mauro - Could I please quote you verbatim in a post on my personal website? It' gets very little traffic and so there's nothing really for you to gain, but I simply couldn't write anything better and feel that your quote summarises my own view on the news. The address is https://leefuller.io - please let me know if it's okay and whether you have a website address or any specific information you'd like me to include. I'd typically link to the mailman archive page for this thread.

Thanks very much, sorry if I've drawn your attention away from something more important.

Regards

I don't mind, and this is a public post I can't stop anyone from using it ;)

...

*Kind Regards,Lee Fuller*

*PGP Fingerprint https://leefuller.io/pgp/: * 4ACAEBA4B9EE1B3A075034302D5C3D050E6ED55A

On 19 August 2016 at 15:28, Mauro Santos via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

...
On 19-08-2016 14:27, Stephen E. Baker via arch-general wrote:

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As a PowerShell user, it certainly has it's place, but it's place is pretty niche in the linux world, so +1 for the AUR.

Given that it comes from Microsoft they must have some agenda to fulfill, I'd rather not touch this even with a 10 foot pole, just like I try to stay away for other MS products as much as I can. The AUR is where it should stay, but even then they can spin it as PR fodder just like canonical spun snappy coming to Arch Linux.

Make no mistake, they are after profits and do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing, all their friendliness to linux and open source is tainted with patent attacks behind the curtain. The next time the leadership changes there is no guarantee that this new found friendliness isn't going to change.

-- Mauro Santos

-- Mauro Santos

Sebastiaan Lokhorst

3:05 p.m.

2016-08-19 16:28 GMT+02:00 Mauro Santos via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org>:

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Make no mistake, they are after profits and do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing

So do Red Hat and Google. But does that keep us from using systemd or Chromium? Please stop this unfounded, tinfoil hat "Micro$oft sucks!!11" whining. If there is an actual reason why you shouldn't use a product, please say so, but this "don't use it because Microsoft made it" nonsense is ridiculous.

Lee Fuller

3:08 p.m.

Microsoft have set a precedent of unnecessary vile arrogance towards Linux and the companies you cite here don't. I think that is fundamentally why most people have responded with scepticism. *Kind Regards,Lee Fuller* *PGP Fingerprint https://leefuller.io/pgp/: * 4ACAEBA4B9EE1B3A075034302D5C3D050E6ED55A On 19 August 2016 at 16:05, Sebastiaan Lokhorst via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

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2016-08-19 16:28 GMT+02:00 Mauro Santos via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org>:

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Make no mistake, they are after profits and do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing

So do Red Hat and Google. But does that keep us from using systemd or Chromium?

Please stop this unfounded, tinfoil hat "Micro$oft sucks!!11" whining. If there is an actual reason why you shouldn't use a product, please say so, but this "don't use it because Microsoft made it" nonsense is ridiculous.

Kwang Moo Yi

3:13 p.m.

On 08/19/2016 05:08 PM, Lee Fuller via arch-general wrote:

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Microsoft have set a precedent of unnecessary vile arrogance towards Linux and the companies you cite here don't. I think that is fundamentally why most people have responded with scepticism.

For me, defining something *good* and *bad* based on supposed intentions are not really convincing. Unless it's a malware in the sense that it has some backdoor or something, I see no reason to condemn it, whomever wrote the software. To go a bit further, I think we should not treat any package special based on authors. I mean, we don't even know all the people who contributed to the Linux Kernel are (well,.. I suppose technically you can, but you know what I mean). Cheers, Kwang

Thibaut Marty

3:45 p.m.

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 05:13:32PM +0200, Kwang Moo Yi via arch-general wrote:

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I mean, we don't even know all the people who contributed to the Linux Kernel are (well,.. I suppose technically you can, but you know what I mean).

True, and take in account that Microsoft guys had contributed to the kernel mainly for virtualization. So maybe we should stop using Linux? -- Thibaut

Jeroen Mathon

3:34 p.m.

Like that lwtter to opensource programmers? On Fri, 19 Aug 2016, 17:09 Lee Fuller via arch-general, < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

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Microsoft have set a precedent of unnecessary vile arrogance towards Linux and the companies you cite here don't. I think that is fundamentally why most people have responded with scepticism.

*Kind Regards,Lee Fuller*

*PGP Fingerprint https://leefuller.io/pgp/: * 4ACAEBA4B9EE1B3A075034302D5C3D050E6ED55A

On 19 August 2016 at 16:05, Sebastiaan Lokhorst via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

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2016-08-19 16:28 GMT+02:00 Mauro Santos via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org>:

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Make no mistake, they are after profits and do whatever it takes to

keep

...
the money flowing

So do Red Hat and Google. But does that keep us from using systemd or Chromium?

Please stop this unfounded, tinfoil hat "Micro$oft sucks!!11" whining. If there is an actual reason why you shouldn't use a product, please say so, but this "don't use it because Microsoft made it" nonsense is ridiculous.

gurnaik

3:15 p.m.

On 19/08/16 16:05, Sebastiaan Lokhorst via arch-general wrote:

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Please stop this unfounded, tinfoil hat "Micro$oft sucks!!11" whining. If there is an actual reason why you shouldn't use a product, please say so, but this "don't use it because Microsoft made it" nonsense is ridiculous.

They have a proven track record over many years of morally reprehensible behaviour to competitors and anything that they perceive as a threat to their Windows ecosystem, so the cynicism and the "won't use it because it's Microsoft" attitude is completely valid, regardless of how shiny the toy is.

Jayesh Badwaik

3:16 p.m.

On Friday, 19 August 2016 17:05:15 CEST Sebastiaan Lokhorst via arch-general wrote:

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So do Red Hat and Google. But does that keep us from using systemd or Chromium?

Please stop this unfounded, tinfoil hat "Micro$oft sucks!!11" whining. If there is an actual reason why you shouldn't use a product, please say so, but this "don't use it because Microsoft made it" nonsense is ridiculous.

The argument is not that they are shit, argument is that they are evil with patents and for all the talk of friendliness, they are using patents to attack linux and FOSS. systemd is GPL and not patented by Red Hat (I won't be surprised if it does potentially probably violates some patents somewhere on the earth anyway), Chromium is BSD, MIT etc. Embracing those tools do not leave you vulnerable to patent attacks from Google and Red Hat. Hence, not using something because of Microsoft is a very good argument given their track record of using patents nowadays to get even instead of competing on software. -- Cheers Jayesh Badwaik

Joerg Schilling

3:25 p.m.

Jayesh Badwaik wrote:

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systemd is GPL and not patented by Red Hat (I won't be surprised if it does potentially probably violates some patents somewhere on the earth anyway), Chromium is BSD, MIT

If Sun owned patents on SMF, then it probably violates patents... If so, this would be funny, as porting two filesystems (contract fs and object fs) to Linux did allow to use SMF and the existing SMF implementation grants to use existing patents. Jörg -- EMail:joerg@schily.net (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'

Kwang Moo Yi

3:33 p.m.

On 08/19/2016 05:16 PM, Jayesh Badwaik wrote:

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systemd is GPL and not patented by Red Hat (I won't be surprised if it does potentially probably violates some patents somewhere on the earth anyway), Chromium is BSD, MIT etc.

I can't help pointing out that PowerShell is MIT. Cheers, Kwang

Jayesh Badwaik

3:36 p.m.

On Friday, 19 August 2016 17:33:28 CEST Kwang Moo Yi via arch-general wrote:

...

I can't help pointing out that PowerShell is MIT.

The point was patents. -- Cheers Jayesh Badwaik

Sebastiaan Lokhorst

3:47 p.m.

2016-08-19 17:36 GMT+02:00 Jayesh Badwaik :

...

The point was patents.

A company can give out licenses to use a patent. If Microsoft would have patented stuff in PowerShell, but then releases them with the following license included:

...

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software ...

Then Microsoft has given you a license to use that patent under the conditions listed above, and they cannot sue you. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

kendell clark

3:51 p.m.

hi I took a brief look at powershell today when I found out it had been open sourced. I looked at some of the c# source code files and they all read that they're licensed under the apache license, version 2.0. I haven't read that thing, it's probably full of legalese I wouldn't understand, but I bet it's probably lax on the patent front or microsoft wouldn't have chosen it. So we could, theoretically, get into trouble packaging it for arch, although I don't think it's likely. Of course I am not a lawyer or a programmer, this is just my two scents. Thanks Kendell Clark On 08/19/2016 10:47 AM, Sebastiaan Lokhorst via arch-general wrote:

...

2016-08-19 17:36 GMT+02:00 Jayesh Badwaik :

...
The point was patents.

A company can give out licenses to use a patent. If Microsoft would have patented stuff in PowerShell, but then releases them with the following license included:

...
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software ... Then Microsoft has given you a license to use that patent under the conditions listed above, and they cannot sue you.

Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Kwang Moo Yi

4 p.m.

On 08/19/2016 05:51 PM, kendell clark via arch-general wrote:

...

but I bet it's probably lax on the patent front or microsoft wouldn't have chosen it. So we could, theoretically, get into trouble packaging it for arch, although I don't think it's likely.

I don't think this is really appropriate. If you want to make a claim that we should not package it for leagal regions, you really *should* base it on sound legal observations, not based on *bets*. As far as I know, Apache License 2.0 is not harmful. FYI: https://tldrlegal.com/license/apache-license-2.0-(apache-2.0) Kwang

Guus Snijders

4:04 p.m.

Op 19 aug. 2016 17:51 schreef "kendell clark via arch-general" < arch-general@archlinux.org>:

...

hi

I took a brief look at powershell today when I found out it had been open

sourced. I looked at some of the c# source code files and they all read that they're licensed under the apache license, version 2.0. I haven't read that thing, it's probably full of legalese I wouldn't understand, but I bet it's probably lax on the patent front or microsoft wouldn't have chosen it. So we could, theoretically, get into trouble packaging it for arch, although I don't think it's likely. Of course I am not a lawyer or a programmer, this is just my two scents. Not much to worry about, any code that exceeds a two-word limit [1] is probably using some IBM patents. Software patents are a patently bad idea. As for powershell on Linux; it's a nice idea. I actually like it on Windows (especially next to batch/vbscript), and I might play with it a bit on Linux. The idea of managing Windows hosts from a Linux machine is quite interesting. [1] Yes, that was an arbitrary length. Mvg, Guus Snijders

Simon Wydooghe

4:33 p.m.

I'm gonna go with Guus on this one. Compared to batch, it's a blessing. Looking at this from a pure practical standpoint, I would very much enjoy being able to administer the odd Windows server from my Arch box. I'll still hate every minute of it, but how nice would it be not to have to use a Windows VM to do it? Not having to go through AUR to install PowerShell would be even more helpful. I don't see PowerShell getting any actual traction as a replacement for our current shell options. But the addition of it to the Arch repos would make my Arch box an even more powerful workhorse. On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 6:04 PM, Guus Snijders via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

...

Op 19 aug. 2016 17:51 schreef "kendell clark via arch-general" < arch-general@archlinux.org>:

...
hi

I took a brief look at powershell today when I found out it had been open

sourced. I looked at some of the c# source code files and they all read that they're licensed under the apache license, version 2.0. I haven't read that thing, it's probably full of legalese I wouldn't understand, but I bet it's probably lax on the patent front or microsoft wouldn't have chosen it. So we could, theoretically, get into trouble packaging it for arch, although I don't think it's likely. Of course I am not a lawyer or a programmer, this is just my two scents.

Not much to worry about, any code that exceeds a two-word limit [1] is probably using some IBM patents. Software patents are a patently bad idea.

As for powershell on Linux; it's a nice idea. I actually like it on Windows (especially next to batch/vbscript), and I might play with it a bit on Linux. The idea of managing Windows hosts from a Linux machine is quite interesting.

[1] Yes, that was an arbitrary length.

Mvg, Guus Snijders

Magnus Therning

22 Aug 22 Aug

2:07 p.m.

kendell clark via arch-general writes:

...

hi

I took a brief look at powershell today when I found out it had been open sourced. I looked at some of the c# source code files and they all read that they're licensed under the apache license, version 2.0. I haven't read that thing, it's probably full of legalese I wouldn't understand, but I bet it's probably lax on the patent front or microsoft wouldn't have chosen it. So we could, theoretically, get into trouble packaging it for arch, although I don't think it's likely. Of course I am not a lawyer or a programmer, this is just my two scents.

AFAIU the Apache license is actually rather strict with patents: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/187958/apache-license-and-pat... /M -- Magnus Therning OpenPGP: 0x927912051716CE39 email: magnus@therning.org jabber: magnus@therning.org twitter: magthe http://therning.org/magnus $my_args = shift; system("gcc $my_args"); print "I prefer C\n"; — Robert Dieterich's contribution to the 2004 Perl Haiku Contest, Haikus in Perl - 'Dishonerable Mention' winner

Jayesh Badwaik

19 Aug 19 Aug

4:04 p.m.

On Friday, 19 August 2016 17:47:58 CEST Sebastiaan Lokhorst via arch-general wrote:

...

Then Microsoft has given you a license to use that patent under the conditions listed above, and they cannot sue you.

Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

They can still sue you according to wikipedia. Almost free software licenses are only copyright, not patent. GPLv3 is an exception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_other_licenses -- Cheers Jayesh Badwaik

Doug Newgard

3:58 p.m.

On Fri, 19 Aug 2016 17:36:48 +0200 Jayesh Badwaik wrote:

...

On Friday, 19 August 2016 17:33:28 CEST Kwang Moo Yi via arch-general wrote:

...
I can't help pointing out that PowerShell is MIT.

The point was patents.

Which is also moot. Google and RedHat both have patent portfolios that they can and do defend.

Jayesh Badwaik

4:12 p.m.

On Friday, 19 August 2016 10:58:26 CEST Doug Newgard wrote:

...

Which is also moot. Google and RedHat both have patent portfolios that they can and do defend.

Okay, then other factors come in, Google and Redhat "actively" develop free software. This means that if they first write some software and then put a patent application for it, most often, the patent application can be invalidated through prior art. Considering patents take almost 12 to 18 months on average, the other method of contribution (patenting first and then submitting is very difficult because of continuous exposure and at least somewhat fast changes in the code base of importat FOSS). There still exists one method which is, patent first, use the technique later to contribute code, however, that would be covered with 1. clean room implementation 2. won't stand up that favorably in the court, since the company itself willingly contributed the code. So, the point that is actually the point is, a company which is "actively" contributing to the already existing FOSS software and ecosystem is a much safer company to handle than a company which dumps a bunch of free software in public periodically. This is exacerbated by the fact that they *do* use patents to pursue their agenda. -- Cheers Jayesh Badwaik

Jérôme M. Berger

5:36 p.m.

On 08/19/2016 06:12 PM, Jayesh Badwaik wrote:

...

Okay, then other factors come in, Google and Redhat "actively" develop free software. This means that if they first write some software and then put a patent application for it, most often, the patent application can be invalidated through prior art. Considering patents take almost 12 to 18 months on average,

Doesn't matter: what matters when considering prior art re patentability is the date of first filing (*), not the date when the patent is granted, so they can file first and publish the next day without invalidating their own patent. Jerome (*) Actually in the US, the law is even more permissive: you can patent something that *you* have already published, provided that you file the patent within six month of publishing the idea. Of course, this doesn't apply if someone else published it first, and AFAIK it only applies in the US. -- mailto:jeberger@free.fr http://jeberger.free.fr Jabber: jeberger@jabber.fr

Mauro Santos

3:50 p.m.

On 19-08-2016 16:05, Sebastiaan Lokhorst via arch-general wrote:

...

2016-08-19 16:28 GMT+02:00 Mauro Santos via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org>:

...
Make no mistake, they are after profits and do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing

So do Red Hat and Google. But does that keep us from using systemd or Chromium?

Please stop this unfounded, tinfoil hat "Micro$oft sucks!!11" whining. If there is an actual reason why you shouldn't use a product, please say so, but this "don't use it because Microsoft made it" nonsense is ridiculous.

I'm not saying powershell doesn't have merit, and you are free to use it as much as you want, but just like you have stated your opinion, I was stating mine and as such it can be biased. However, as others have pointed out, Microsoft has a very bad track record, unlike Red Hat and Google. If Microsoft wants to be trusted they will have to earn it. -- Mauro Santos

Martin Kühne

4:04 p.m.

If I ever meet you, Mauro, I owe you beer. cheers! mar77i

Jayesh Badwaik

4:15 p.m.

A beer from me too. -- Cheers Jayesh Badwaik

Jérôme M. Berger

5:31 p.m.

On 08/19/2016 03:28 AM, Hunter Connelly via arch-general wrote:

...

Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3

--> ls -sS | head -4 | tail -3

...

PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3

-- mailto:jeberger@free.fr http://jeberger.free.fr Jabber: jeberger@jabber.fr

Leonid Isaev

6:06 p.m.

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 07:31:03PM +0200, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:

...

On 08/19/2016 03:28 AM, Hunter Connelly via arch-general wrote:

...
Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3

--> ls -sS | head -4 | tail -3

...
PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3

Since when ls(1) et al are a part of bash? Are you guys comparing apples with oranges, i.e. bash + coreutils and powershell? -- Leonid Isaev GPG fingerprints: DA92 034D B4A8 EC51 7EA6 20DF 9291 EE8A 043C B8C4 C0DF 20D0 C075 C3F1 E1BE 775A A7AE F6CB 164B 5A6D

Jayesh Badwaik

6:11 p.m.

On Friday, 19 August 2016 12:06:42 CEST Leonid Isaev wrote:

...

Since when ls(1) et al are a part of bash? Are you guys comparing apples with oranges, i.e. bash + coreutils and powershell?

Yes, somewhere in the thread it is already decided that powershell is more like python than bash. -- Cheers Jayesh Badwaik

Eli Schwartz

8:26 p.m.

On 08/19/2016 02:06 PM, Leonid Isaev wrote:

...

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 07:31:03PM +0200, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:

...
On 08/19/2016 03:28 AM, Hunter Connelly via arch-general wrote:

...
Bash: ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3

--> ls -sS | head -4 | tail -3

...
PowerShell: ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3

Since when ls(1) et al are a part of bash? Are you guys comparing apples with oranges, i.e. bash + coreutils and powershell?

I think the original point by Hunter Connelly was that PowerShell uses .NET objects, versus bash as a text stream-based shell. So apparently, because there is no "find the largest three files" utility, bash requires ridiculous workarounds like parsing the output of `ls` and piping it through four different tools for filtering text. But PowerShell can be told how to treat objects in one or two easily-decipherable (but verbose) commands. ... We now have multiple disproofs that show how bash does not suffer for its textness and lack of objects... Because `ls` has its own ability to format *and sort* by name + filesize. But I still prefer the elegance of `find`. Especially the fact that `find` can specify depth and exclude directories. In short, we don't need (verbose) PowerShell objects if we actually know how to use (non-verbose) coreutils properly, therefore bash suffices. Since bash is more pleasant to type than PowerShell (in the opinion of many, please no one respond just to point out that *they* prefer PowerShell) and bash has been used, on all OSes, for a lot longer... And it is just as capable, if you know what you are doing... PowerShell has no real justification for catching on in a major way. Except for people who already use PowerShell on Windows, especially to manage Windows computers from Linux rather than having to use PowerShell in a Windows VM. ... Many people will dislike PowerShell merely because it comes from Microsoft, and there is a lot of well-deserved dislike and mistrust for anything Microsoft offers, I am sure a lot of people will not want it in the AUR. But anyone can contribute to the AUR, even Microsoft themselves... so they will just have to live with it. On pure practicality, I doubt it will gain enough popularity to earn a TU sponsorship into [community]. So really, stop worrying about it, y'all. ;) -- Eli Schwartz

Ralf Mardorf

9:33 p.m.

www.my-favoured-search-engine.com Search term: linux shell how to do this and that If you don't know how to find the size and name of the three largest files in a directory, but only of those files that have a size value that is a prime number in MiB and a file name that does contain the letters "a" and "f", but does not include the numbers "3" and "6", you more likely will find hints how to do this by common used Linux and BSD tools, than hints how to do this with a Microsoft shell. This is not an argument pro or con PowerShell. I don't care if it is in a repo or not. I just wonder about arguing pro PowerShell by providing examples that are solvable by either already having the Linux knowledge or by using a search engine with the keyword Linux, to get Linux knowledge.

Yaro Kasear

9:40 p.m.

Consider also that getting PowerShell doesn't solve the "how do I" problem. People who don't know PS would still have to look up how to do the same thing on there. If you're already familiar with Linux, and chances are you are if you're using Archlinux, then PowerShell won't solve any problems for you in almost every case. It's neat that PowerShell is ported now, but I do scratch my head and wonder what niche it will fill that would merit anything more than placement on the AUR. Conrad On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 4:33 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

...

www.my-favoured-search-engine.com

Search term:

linux shell how to do this and that

If you don't know how to find the size and name of the three largest files in a directory, but only of those files that have a size value that is a prime number in MiB and a file name that does contain the letters "a" and "f", but does not include the numbers "3" and "6", you more likely will find hints how to do this by common used Linux and BSD tools, than hints how to do this with a Microsoft shell.

This is not an argument pro or con PowerShell. I don't care if it is in a repo or not. I just wonder about arguing pro PowerShell by providing examples that are solvable by either already having the Linux knowledge or by using a search engine with the keyword Linux, to get Linux knowledge.

Ralf Mardorf

10:13 p.m.

On Fri, 19 Aug 2016 16:40:32 -0500, Yaro Kasear wrote:

...

People who don't know PS would still have to look up how to do the same thing on there.

That is already part of my point of view. If we have a problem and don't know how to solve it, we not necessarily use the keywords "bash", "dash" or something similar, but we would likely search for "Linux". If one of the keywords is "Linux", we more likely will get help in using Linux and BSD tools and very unlikely hints how to satisfy our needs using a Microsoft tool. If we are already used to something, that is portable, IOW provided by default for most, if not all Linux distros' default installs and perhaps BSD, too, I doubt that many of us are willing to use a tool from Microsoft, to get rid of the things we are already used to. This second mail should be my last mail regarding this thread. I only wanted to point out, that I'm a little bit surprised. I'm not against this PowerShell, but I doubt that many Linux users will care about it, not regarding reservations against Microsoft, just because there are already established "standard" shells and "alternative" shells and all of them can be used with additional commands, scripts and aliases. I doubt that Microsoft now provides something that we were missing. I'm surprised that this did cause such a long discussion. "PowerShell is an automation platform and scripting language for Windows and Windows Server" - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell We already could read that some like to maintain Windows servers using Linux, everyone else unlikely cares about different ways to e.g. use "ls".

Jameson

1:30 p.m.

On Thu, Aug 18, 2016, 7:30 PM Hunter Connelly via arch-general < arch-general@archlinux.org> wrote:

...

Specifically, if any of you will be using it, if you think it should be in

the main repos, what this might mean for the future, etc. I plan on trying to use it to manage Windows Servers from my Arch box.

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29 participants

participants (29)

Christian Hesse
Dave T
Doug Newgard
Eli Schwartz
gurnaik
Guus Snijders
Hunter Connelly
Ismael Bouya
Jameson
Jayesh Badwaik
Jeroen Mathon
Joerg Schilling
Jérôme M. Berger
kendell clark
Kwang Moo Yi
Kyle Terrien
Lee Burton
Lee Fuller
Leonid Isaev
Magnus Therning
Martin Kühne
Mauro Santos
Ralf Mardorf
Sebastiaan Lokhorst
Simon Wydooghe
Stephen E. Baker
Thibaut Marty
Tinu Weber
Yaro Kasear