fortune(1) - sample lines from a file

Fortune prints an aphorism chosen at random.

Usage

go install bwsd.dev/fortunes@latest
wget -O "$HOME/fortunes" https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bwsd0/fortune/master/lib/fortunes
echo 'export FORTUNES="$HOME/fortunes"' >> ~/.bashrc

Sources

Jar of fortunes

• 9 front
• cat-v
• FreeBSD
• FreeBSD (offensive)
• Kernelnewbies
• OpenBSD
• Plan 9
• Terry A. Davis

To update the fortune file:

wget -O lib/fortunes https://9fans.github.io/usr/local/plan9/lib/fortunes

History

fortune(6) first appeared in the Seventh Edition of Unix in 1979, written by Ken Arnold.

• Unix 7th Ed.
• Unix 8th Ed.
• Plan 9 2nd Ed
• FreeBSD 1.1
• 9 Front (July, 2011)[^1]
• FreeBSD (2017) Removal[^2]
• Debian ?

Notes

[1]: 9Front introduced variants theo(1), troll(1) and bullshit(1) [2]: Revision 325828

Humour is a funny thing. What is funny to one person is not funny to all people. What is insightful to one person is similarly not universal. The fortune datfiles have been around a long time and have undoubtedly amused people but it's time to acknowledge their subjective, and in some cases at least potentially offensive, nature and stop distributing them with the imprimatur of the FreeBSD project.

See also

• Aphorisms about aphorisms
• QOTD (Quote of the Day Protocol) (RFC 865)

License

MIT