From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 5 16:29:11 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F14D216A403 for ; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 16:29:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from norgaard@locolomo.org) Received: from strange.daemonsecurity.com (59.Red-81-33-11.staticIP.rima-tde.net [81.33.11.59]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD88C43D78 for ; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 16:29:02 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from norgaard@locolomo.org) Received: from [192.168.7.193] (68.Red-80-34-55.staticIP.rima-tde.net [80.34.55.68]) by strange.daemonsecurity.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 028D62E024; Thu, 5 Oct 2006 18:29:00 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <452532C7.1090909@locolomo.org> Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 18:28:55 +0200 From: Erik Norgaard User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 (Windows/20060909) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Jason C. Wells" References: <45249716.2050401@highperformance.net> <4524B1DF.20206@locolomo.org> <4525260C.6080100@highperformance.net> In-Reply-To: <4525260C.6080100@highperformance.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd general questions Subject: Re: Compatibility Between Releases Policy X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 16:29:12 -0000 Jason C. Wells wrote: > Ports astonish me more often than FreeBSD to be sure. If one uses a > port that was built on a 6.0 system, can one trust that no bit rot will > occur by the time 6.9 rolls around. Will all of FreeBSDs interfaces and > features remain backward compatible? While the developer community > might employee POLA in this regard, this sure seems like the kind of > policy issue that would be written into our release engineering > documents. (I couldn't find it.) Looks like you want to read this: http://www.freebsd.org/portmgr/policies.html POLA is an ideal, it may be necessary to violate POLA for example for security reasons, and you may have system upgrades that will require rebuild of ports too - recently a bug in openssl required a rebuild of world - and I assume any ports built against the base' openssl. I don't understand your concern, if you upgrade the base system wouldn't it be time to check your ports too? If you insist just don't update your ports tree, that should keep it working with the same versions of ports although you may have to rebuild individual ports. I find it easier to adapt continuously to small astonishments :) Cheers, Erik -- Ph: +34.666334818 web: http://www.locolomo.org X.509 Certificate: http://www.locolomo.org/crt/8D03551FFCE04F0C.crt Key ID: 69:79:B8:2C:E3:8F:E7:BE:5D:C3:C3:B1:74:62:B8:3F:9F:1F:69:B9