diff(1)

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <16715.4611.108597.354107 at piglet.timing.com>
            Ben Mesander <ben at timing.com> writes:
:   I've recently done a port of OpenBSD diff(1) to FreeBSD for
: licensing reasons (the diff(1) in base FreeBSD is GPL licensed),
: OpenBSD has a BSD-style license).
: 
:   I was going to work with Warner to see if I could get this into
: the ports collection. But we were also curious to see if other
: people thought it might be OK to replace the GNU diff in base
: with the OpenBSD diff.
: 
:   For reference, here is the OpenBSD diff source and manpage:
: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/diff/
: 
:   There would also have to be some integration with other programs
: (such as diff3(1)).

Needless to say, I think this is an excellent idea.  I'm happy to do
the leg work to get this into the tree, so that's not an issue. :-)

OpenBSD's diff is much smaller than gnu's.  It seems to use less
memory as well for many operations.  Its speed seems about the same.
Most of these impressions are based on light testing, so YMMV.

This would be in keeping with our march to get rid of other gnu
products in our tree: awk, sort, etc.

Warner