hi, For long we are planning to remove GNU rcs from base, after a failed attempt before FreeBSD 10.0. Let see where we are to be able to remove it from FreeBSD 12. GNU rcs is a GPLv2 software with newer version being GPLv3 preventing any updates/fixes. From previous discussions there were issues that has been raised in previous attempts: - ident(1) is still useful given we still have Keywords in our sources. It has been replaced by a BSD Licensed version (enhanced to improve compatibility with Subversion Keyword) for FreeBSD 11. So that tool will remain in base after removal of GNU rcs. - etc-update uses merge(1) from GNU rcs, this has been changed in head to use diff3 instead. - rc.subr allows to use rcs for the backup file functionality. This functionality is off by default as such I plan to make a warning if rcs is not installed and recommand to install rcs from base (or if noone claim using the feature I will just remove the functionality and only keep the default behaviour aka keep one backup copy). - people uses rcs to handle configuration files in /etc for example. for those multiple compatible alternatives are available in ports: * rcs57: a copy of the latest version of GNU rcs in base before removal (GPLv2) * rcs: latest GNU rcs version (GPLv3) I haven't gone the direction of importing OpenRCS (BSD licensed version from OpenBSD) as it needs way more work to be 100% compatible with latest version of GNU rcs. How to proceed: - First turn off GNU rcs by default for a couple of month. - Totally remove GNU rcs if no blockers has been raised. Best regards, Bapt
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