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Comment by dcow | Hacker News Reader

> The current documentation of openrsync does not make any guarantee that it can make complete file copies, so by default I assume that it cannot, so for now it is a program that I consider useless.

Is it possible this is just a documentation style-tone mismatch? My default assumption would be that openrsync is simply a less restrictively licensed rsync, and I wouldn’t assume it works any differently. Have you verified your strong hypothesis? Or are you just expressing skepticism. It’s hard to tell exactly.

Edit: I read the openrsync readme. It says it’s compatible with rsync and points the reader to rsync’s docs. Unless extended file attributes, ACLs, and high resolution timestamps are optional at the protocol level, it must support everything modern rsync supports to be considered compatible, right? Or are you suggesting it lies and accepts the full protocol but just e.g. drops ACLs on the floor?

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From the article:

> The openrsync command line tool is compatible with rsync, but as noted in the documentation openrsync accepts only a subset of rsync’s command line arguments.

Yes but that doesn't necessarily mean it is lacking the functionality to fully copy metadata. It could mean that openrsync has removed archaic and vestigial options to simplify implementation.

Hmm those archaic and vestigial options are probably still a pillar in many usecases :)

I'm still using the multi volume support in tar for example. Which was something that stems from the time when tar was used for tape archives (hence the name tar) on actual tapes. Without that I'd be really screwed because I use a box full of harddrives as backup "tapes" (which works surprisingly well I must say, I needed a small restore only a week or two ago and it really saved my bacon). But I bet 99.9% of tar users have no idea it can even do that.

Rsync is another one of those swiss army knives that people use for a lot more stuff than you might expect. Especially the remote capabilities are amazing.

The problem is that when you clone something but don't provide full compatibility, you're putting your users through much headscratching and frustration. It would be better to not name it after the original then so it's clear it's something different.

It says it’s fully compatible which I take at face value. I guess I’m curious if there’s a real problem here and openrsync is missing support for 0.1% of use cases, or if it’s just pessimistic speculation.

https://xkcd.com/1172/

Well, yes. I do really hate opinionated software (e.g. Apple, or GNOME). I do tend to find the weird niches that work for me. I'm currently using KDE and I've totally worked it over. Which is great because I can be much more productive if I'm not constantly fighting against the UI. But yeah such tools with millions of niche features are great for me.

The software packages I really value the most are the ones where a situation causes something really weird I need to do, and I read in the documentation to try to find some workaround, and then I discover that it already has exactly that feature that I need hidden in there somewhere. It's like the developer read my mind :) There's been very few packages that I truly cherished (and very few in this day and age, software in the early PC days was often more powerful IMO).

One of them was SP (SK Packet Radio), where this happened several times. That was truly amazing software, there was so much it could do and it all worked on an 8088 together with a TSR-based softmodem (connected to a radio not a phone line). Wow. Even the insanest stuff that popped into my head I could make happen with just some settings.

Here's a taste of unopinionated KDE: https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphin/-/merge_requests/1

That's a really decent discussion though, from both sides. The option was seriously considered.

It's a world of difference to Gnome devs that will just shut down everything.

PS I do think dolphin is the weakest link in the KDE experience though. But they have made some really good improvements with KDE 6. Like the typable crumb trail.

It's a bit of a contrast though with macOS where the finder is one of the least opinionated parts of the OS (and thus for me one of the best). I think that's more of a historical thing though, Apple's vision seems to be more centered around moving file management into the domain of different apps like on iOS. Another thing i don't like but I think ios has loosened that somewhat as they had to contend that it was necessary to make the iPad more of a productivity device (it still really isn't one though)

> it must support everything modern rsync supports to be considered compatible, right?

Apple's openrsync says that it is compatible with rsync protocol versions 27 - 29, which predate rsync 3.X. I don't consider it modern.

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