Re: Text based synchronous communication tool for Linux?

Richard Kettlewell wrote:

Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> writes:

Muttley wrote:
>

talk is an age old unix util that allows people on the same machine to chat.
Even MacOS has it installed.

>
"Even" MacOS?  It's required for UNIX® conformance - if MacOS didn't
have talk, it wouldn't be able to be certified as UNIX.

 
I was surprised by that. Do you happen to know what motivated its
inclusion?

The original decision to include talk goes back to POSIX.2-1992, where
the rationale begins with this paragraph:

    The write utility was included in POSIX.2 since it can be
    implemented on all terminal types. The talk utility, which cannot
    be implemented on certain terminals, was considered to be a
    ‘‘better’’ communications interface. Both of these programs are
    in widespread use on historical implementations. Therefore, both
    utilities have been specified.

While this thread does show that there’s some demand for the
application, it seems a surprising thing to include in a OS specification.

It's part of the "User Portability Utilities" option (which includes
things like ex and vi), so it's optional for POSIX conformance but
that option is mandated for UNIX conformance.

--
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>