From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Jul 11 0:13:19 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CCB7B37B400 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 2002 00:13:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from postfix3-2.free.fr (postfix3-2.free.fr [213.228.0.169]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B84F143E52 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 2002 00:13:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rsidd@lpt.ens.fr) Received: from bluerondo.a.la.turk (nas-cbv-5-62-147-145-119.dial.proxad.net [62.147.145.119]) by postfix3-2.free.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1721618000 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 2002 09:12:58 +0200 (CEST) Received: (qmail 437 invoked by uid 1001); 11 Jul 2002 07:12:55 -0000 Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 09:12:55 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan To: Terry Lambert Cc: Alexey Dokuchaev , Cy Schubert - CITS Open Systems Group , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Package system wishlist Message-ID: <20020711071255.GA264@lpt.ens.fr> References: <20020710210509.GA686@lpt.ens.fr> <3D2CA535.EC11BDA1@mindspring.com> <20020710213619.GA882@lpt.ens.fr> <3D2CBAC4.6AC3CAC9@mindspring.com> <20020710230709.GA1512@lpt.ens.fr> <3D2CC6A9.EB0F7995@mindspring.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <3D2CC6A9.EB0F7995@mindspring.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.27i X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 4.6-PRERELEASE i386 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Terry Lambert said on Jul 10, 2002 at 16:43:37: > Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > > I am refusing to go from 4.x to 5.x; or from 4.4 to 4.6. Whichever. > > > The important part is my refusal to change for the sake of change. > > > > Then you'd have to convince the FreeBSD security people to issue fixes > > for all branches, back to 1.0 or earlier, no? (Equivalently, to > > support version 4.4 until the year 2038.) I still don't see your > > argument for packaging components of the base system. A binary from > > FreeBSD 7.3 in 2006 is unlikely to work on your FreeBSD 4.4 system. > > > > Microsoft did support Windows 95 for a long time, but they have a > > rather less aggressive release schedule. > > No, all I'd have to convince them to do is release fixes for the > varios packages. I can install a different OpenSSH in my system, > if OpenSSH is just another component. All I have to care about is > binary backward compatability, and that's taken care of by the > dependency tracking. (a) You're still bitten by major incompatible changes in OpenSSH which could screw up your setup (config files etc, as you pointed out). (b) What about the C library, the toolkit, the rest of the "base" system? Would you like those to be packages too? In that case, I think gentoo linux's "portage" setup is just for you. The entire system is a collection of "ports" (or, to use their terminology, "ebuilds"), plus the kernel. I like it, but it's clear to me that I wouldn't trust such a thing on a server. It's for people who like the "bleeding edge" and such a terminology as "gentoo 1.2 + bugfixes" has no meaning: each component is upgraded separately to the point where it becomes gentoo 1.3, etc. Either you have nondisruptive bugfixes, or you have potentially disruptive upgrades. You can't have guaranteed-nondisruptive upgrades. And nondisruptive bugfixes are typically not supplied for outdated packages, so eventually you have to upgrade. In your example, you're at the mercy of not only the FreeBSD team but also the OpenSSH team. As of now, at least, we only depend on the FreeBSD team. - Rahul To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message