Re: coreutils feature requests?

[Erik Auerswald]

Hi,

On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 09:15:43AM -0500, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 07/19/2017 08:29 AM, Nellis, Kenneth wrote:
> > From: Steeve McCauley
> >> I can't believe I'd never thought of reordering output columns like this.  
> >> FWIW, I agree that another option should be used to prevent issues with 
> >> backward compatibility.
> >>
> >> $ echo 1,2,3,4,5,6 | cut -d, -f3,5,2
> >> 2,3,5
> >>
> >> $ echo 1,2,3,4,5,6 | cut -d, -f3,5,2 -o
> >> 3,5,2
> 
> Unfortunately, it takes time to add an option, and then for that
> addition to percolate into the pre-built binaries of all the distros
> that you use.
> [...]
> the gap).
> Adding a new feature to GNU Coreutils is also easier to do if
> you can find someone else (like BSD) that already has the feature - but
> to my knowledge, no common 'cut -o' exists in other major distributions.

I have read this reasoning quite often on this list. Does it mean that GNU
does not innovate, but it might follow the lead of innovators? I thought
one of the goals of GNU was to improve on Unix
(https://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html).
The announcements states "We will make all improvements that are
convenient[...]." Are those times over?

Sorry for the flame bait, but I needed to get this out.

Thanks,
Erik
-- 
Design your product to please the users.
                        -- Paul Graham