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Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 09:29:32 -0600
From: Nate Williams <nate@sri.MT.net>
Message-Id: <199606071529.JAA29241@rocky.sri.MT.net>
To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org (FreeBSD Hackers),
        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org (FreeBSD Stable Users),
        FreeBSD-current@freebsd.org (FreeBSD current users)
Subject: Re: The -stable problem: my view 
In-Reply-To: <15552.834154175@time.cdrom.com>
References: <199606071015.MAA00708@allegro.lemis.de>
	<15552.834154175@time.cdrom.com>
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> > I buy most of Jordan's arguments about getting rid of -stable (though
> > I'm not sure why CVS should be the problem.  Sure, I don't like it
> > either, but the way I see it, that's mainly a problem of
> > documentation), and so I'm not going to argue against killing -stable,
> 
> Try using it _seriously_ someday and no explanation will be necessary.
> Suffice it to say that it has absolutely nothing to do with the
> documentation.

I disagree that it's somehow so awful as to be un-doable, and I've been
doing a *ton* of work in both -stable and -current.  However, it's a
*LOT* of work.  However, I don't think this has anything to do with CVS,
but has to do with the diverging of the trees.  P3 may make it easier to
do as far as resources, but the actual work of 'merging' in changes to
both won't be any easier.  Building the patches is the hard work IMHO,
and this can't be automated in any real fashion in a safe manner for
something like -stable by it's very nature, as John Polstra already
pointed out.  *Every* single patch I've brought into stable I eye-ball
reviewed before I committed them (fat lot of good it did me for all
those stupid syntax errors and such), but at least I knew what the
functionality was supposed to do.

This kind of work is necessary for -stable to exist, and apparently at
least Jordan and David are completely unwillingly to do this.  Do any of
the developers (and Peter the CVS-meister) have anything to say?


Nate