[Toybox] Getting Toybox into Android before the NetBSD userland wins out

[Jason Spiro]

Over time, Android has gradually been copying more and more of the NetBSD 
source code into the Git 
repository which holds their "toolbox" command.[*]

^  [*].  See, for example, this change:
         
<http://android.googlesource.com/platform/system/core/+/
fd4c6b0a3a25921a9fe24691a695d715aecb6afe>

I still prefer Toybox.  For one thing, the "-h" help built into various 
Toybox commands tends to be far 
better.  (Why is the "-h" help built into various NetBSD commands so skimpy?  
I guess the developers 
assume that all users have a manpage viewer installed.  Well, Android 
includes no such viewer.)

I think that it would be unwise to wait until Toybox hits 1.0 before trying 
to get Toybox into Android.  
The longer the project waits, the better the NetBSD userland will be 
integrated into Android and the more 
accustomed the Android team will become to that userland's quirks.

I humbly suggest that perhaps the best thing to do would be to visit the 
Android mailing list today, and 
to float the idea of getting _some_ parts of Toybox into Android.  Perhaps 
start by suggesting that 
Toybox could provide some useful things that Android doesn't yet include:  
for example, dos2unix, 
unix2dos, nice, renice, sort, uniq, usleep, tac, tee, yes, and acpi.

Once Toybox gets into Android, it might then be possible to convince the 
Android maintainers to provide 
symlinks from /system/bin to _all_ of the reasonably-finished parts of 
Toybox.

What do you think of my idea?

Kind regards,
-- 
Jason Spiro:  computer consultant.
Improve your kids' or your workers' productivity.  If you'd like
an Internet filter installed in your home or workplace, contact me today.
+1 (416) 992-3445 / <http://www.jspiro.com/>.


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