2023-06-02
GNU Grep versus the (Linux) open source ecology
One of the changes in GNU Grep 3.8 was, to quote this release notice (also the GNU Grep 3.8 release NEWS):
The egrep and fgrep commands, which have been deprecated since release 2.5.3 (2007), now warn that they are obsolescent and should be replaced by grep -E and grep -F.
GNU Grep's fgrep and egrep commands were already shell scripts
that ran 'grep -F' or 'grep -E', so this change amounted to
adding an echo to them (to standard error). Many Linux distributions
immediately reverted this change (for example, Debian), but Fedora
did not and so Fedora 38 eventually shipped with Grep 3.8. Fedora
38 also shipped with any number of open source packages that contain
installed scripts that use 'fgrep' and 'egrep' (cf what I
found on my machine), and
likely more of its packages use those commands in their build
scripts.
(There are reports of build failures in Gentoo (via).)
Since adding warnings and other new messages is a breaking API
change, all of these packages are now
broken in Fedora and by extension any other Linux distribution that
packages them, uses GNU Grep 3.8 or later, and hasn't reverted this
change. Some of them are only minorly broken; others, either
inspecting their standard error or operating in a context where
other programs expect to see and not see some things, are more
seriously affected. To repair this breakage, all of these packages
need to be changed to use 'grep -F' and 'grep -E' instead of
fgrep and egrep.
This change is pointless make-work inflicted on the broad open source ecology by GNU Grep. GNU Grep's decision to cause these long-standing commands to emit new messages requires everyone else to go through making changes in order to return to the status quo. This is exactly the same kind of make work as other pointless API changes, and just like them it's hostile to the broad open source ecology.
(It's also hostile to actual people, but that's another topic.)
You may be tempted to say 'but it's a small change'. There are two answers. First, a small change multiplied by a large number of open source projects is a lot of work overall. Second, that this is a make-work change at all is GNU Grep deciding that other projects don't matter that much. This decision is hostile to the wider open source ecology as a matter of principle. It's especially hostile given that any number of open source projects are at best dormant, although still perfectly functional, and thus not likely to make any changes, and other open source projects will likely tell GNU Grep to get bent and not change (after all, even Linux distributions are rejecting this GNU Grep change).
Due to how Linux distribution packaging generally works, it would
actually have been less harmful for the overall Linux distribution
ecology if GNU Grep had simply dropped their 'fgrep' and 'egrep'
cover scripts. If they had done so, Linux distributions would most
likely have shipped their own cover scripts (without warnings) as
additional packages; instead, GNU Grep has forced Linux distributions
to patch GNU Grep itself.
PS: While GNU Grep is in theory not Linux specific, in practice only Linux uses GNU Grep. Other open source Unixes have their own versions of the grep suite, and this GNU Grep change isn't going to encourage them to switch.
(I had a string of Fediverse reactions to this change when I upgraded to Fedora 38 on my work machine. Also, when GNU Grep released 3.8 last fall I wrote about how we're stuck with egrep and fgrep.)