[CentOS] Two ftp clients? Why?

Tue Aug 2 19:41:52 UTC 2011
James B. Byrne <byrnejb at harte-lyne.ca>

I had a problem wherein running a script with an embedded ftp call
would work in the login shell during integration testing and then
fail with an unrecognized option error in cron during acceptance
testing.

In solving this I discovered that RedHat, and therefore CentOS,
ships with at least two ftp clients, /usr/bin/ftp ( which I thought
I was using ) and /usr/kerberos/bin/ftp, which I actually was using.
 even though I had no inkling of its existence.

My question is why?  Why are there two ftp clients provided in a
single distribution and why is the kerberos version effectively made
the default whereas one might reasonably assume that anything in
/usr/bin/ is the standard ( and by inference default ) ftp client
for the distribution?  If kerberos ftp is intended to be the default
ftp client then why is it not in, or at least linked to from,
/usr/bin?

I just do not understand why these obscure distribution 'gotchas'
are created in the first place, much less permitted to persist.

-- 
***          E-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel          ***
James B. Byrne                mailto:ByrneJB at Harte-Lyne.ca
Harte & Lyne Limited          http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 Brockley Drive              vox: +1 905 561 1241
Hamilton, Ontario             fax: +1 905 561 0757
Canada  L8E 3C3