Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 22:57:12 -0800 From: Greg Shenaut <greg@bogslab.ucdavis.edu> To: stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Binary package updates, etc. Message-ID: <199803230657.WAA10963@myrtle1.bogs.org> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 23 Mar 1998 17:35:09 %2B1100." <Pine.BSF.3.91.980323172519.300J-100000@panda.hilink.com.au>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
In message <Pine.BSF.3.91.980323172519.300J-100000@panda.hilink.com.au>, "Daniel O'Callaghan" cleopede: > >I think Derek is doing a great job! Congrats. However, I do also think >that Cy Schubert made a very valid point that we need to identify what it >is that is going to be updated using this package mechanism. > >If the pkg mechanism include feature enhancements to the system, then >people may be reluctant to use it, lest they change somethin on >which their system depends. Alex changed the size of the ipfw structure >and created an incompatibility between ipfw(8) and ip_fw.[ch] last >November/December. The result was that a kernel upgrade meant a >userland upgrade for ipfw(8). This is likely to be a good reason many >will shy away from enhancement packages. > >If the pkg mechanism is only for bug fixes, that's fine, until you need >to produce a package for a bug fix in an enhancement. > >The only way to cater for both scenarios is to flag each package as >either ENHANCEMENT or FIX, and make any FIX packages dependent on the >ENHANCEMENT package. I think patches are very different from packages. Packages are optional modules which can be added to a system; patches fix bugs in the system. Packages are distributed with the CD-ROM; it would make no sense for a patch to be distributed with a CD-ROM. It may or may not be the case that a mechanism similar to that which is currently being used for packages could be bent to implement patches, but I can't see what this buys us. I don't think it really matters very much how a particular patch is implemented--it should be up to the developer. What we need to do is to specify the semantics of a patch so that the patches can be distributed and applied with a minimum of fuss. -Greg To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199803230657.WAA10963>