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Date:      Sun, 8 Oct 2000 00:53:16 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Dima Dorfman <dima@unixfreak.org>
To:        "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@futuresouth.com>
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Bugfixes, security fixes, versions
Message-ID:  <20001008075316.8D2D91F23@static.unixfreak.org>
In-Reply-To: <20001007213929.C24996@futuresouth.com> "from Matthew D. Fuller at Oct 7, 2000 09:39:29 pm"

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> The whole "Stable Branch" thread on -security gave me an idea that's been
> perculating for some time.
> 
> Problem: 
> We have security problems in (say) -STABLE.  They get fixed.  We post an
> advisory about it, giving correction dates for -STABLE and -CURRENT, and
> the associated cutoff in which releases are fixed and which are not.
> However, tracking dates on buildworlds etc is hard.  I'm sure I'm not
> the only one who usually does build/installworlds on source at least a
> week old.  I check it it, built it, and if it's clean, wait to see if
> anyone else has any problems with it.  And since I tend to put off building
> the kernel until I install, the date uname gives isn't necessarily useful
> for checking this sort of stuff.
> 
> Idea:
> In the version string (or maybe somewhere else convenient), start adding
> codes at each -RELEASE along a branch.  So, say we find a bug in fingerd.
> It's in 4.1-RELEASE, fixed in 4.1-STABLE at some point, and fixed in
> 4.2-RELEASE.  We could add an 'a' to the version string in -STABLE, so it
> will read out as "4.1-STABLE a".  Find another bug and fix it, we have
> "4.1-STABLE b".  Presumably, this would only apply to such things as

Why not just use a date?  I do this on most of my systems.  My `uname
-r` reads:

4.1-20000916-STABLE

I started doing this for the exact same reason you described above--to
know when I updated the system.  It does clutter the `uname -a` output
a bit, so it could be done similar to the way you suggested with the
flag: "4.1-STABLE 20000916".

Just a thought.

Regards

-- 
Dima Dorfman <dima@unixfreak.org>
Finger dima@unixfreak.org for my public PGP key.

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.


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