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Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:14:10 +0000 (GMT)
From: Robert Watson <rwatson@freebsd.org>
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To: Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net>
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Subject: Re: OpenBSD's netcat in base or ports?
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On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Brooks Davis wrote:

> > For something as simple and useful as nc, I'd rather see it in the
> > base system than as a port.  It is useful enough to enough people that
> > the extra care and feeding it will get in the base is worth the extra
> > burdon it places on us to do that.  It doesn't duplicate things in the
> > base system, and provides functionality that's useful to many people.
> 
> netcat does something so simple (hook some file descriptors together
> until something closes them), it always suprises me to remember that
> there's no library function to do this.  To me that argues for being in
> the base system. 

It's always surprised me netcat isn't in the base system -- it's a very
useful testing tool.

Robert N M Watson