Alternate Shells

[Ken Arnold%CGL]

In article <242 at cmu-cs-h.ARPA> rfb at cmu-cs-h.ARPA (Rick Busdiecker) writes:
>Why did you disable switching to other shells rather than simply demanding
>the users password before completing the shell switch?

(a) It was easier to implement

(b) We saw little reason for anybody to use any other shell (you must
remember that csh was new then, and there were no other alternative
shells).  The only other common shell used was a basic+ interpreter for
one business class, which was given by the administrator when the class
accounts were set up.

I do not mean to defend this as the correct solution in today's
circumstances.  Somebody reported modifying their chsh to look in
/lib/ok_shells instead of having a hardwired list, which makes more
sense.  But in a world where there were only two shells, it was the
most obvious solution, and I thought I'd enlighten on a minor point of
UNIX history in which I was involed.

		Ken Arnold