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To: Adam David <adam@veda.is>
cc: alex@FreeBSD.ORG (Alex Nash), cvs-committers@FreeBSD.ORG,
        cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-sbin@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sbin/ipfw ipfw.cy 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:08:13 GMT."
             <199802171008.KAA24675@veda.is> 
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 02:24:21 -0800
Message-ID: <7277.887711061@time.cdrom.com>
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
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> If they are going to the trouble of updating the binaries beyond -release,
> why would they want to omit updating the contents of /etc for those files
> where it matters?

Lots of good reasons. :-(

1. The fact that /etc hasn't actually *needed* updating if the user leaves
   it completely alone and doesn't try mixing-and-matching of its
   contents is powerful incentive to just not touch /etc at all for many.
   Believe me - our very own freefall, for example, is running
   2.2-stable but is still using /etc/sysconfig and all the files that
   go with it out of sheer laziness. :-)

2. Even if the user really wants to update their /etc files, the
   standard "world" target gives you no advanced tools for doing so
   and so they've got to hand-migrate all their changes into whatever
   new /etc structure the developers have invented for them that week
   (and you must admit, the rc mechanism has seen a lot of changes in
   the last year :-).  That's intimidating, and so lots of folks still
   shy away from the idea.

Alex's commit is a good thing.  It'll save transition shock for any of
the many *thousands* of people who'll upgrade their 2.2.5 to 2.2.6
purely through the world target and not go anywhere near /etc.

Of course, if by this you or anyone else is volunteering to write the
/etc auto-updater that so many have talked about and so few have
implemented (myself right up there with the guiltiest of them), well
then that's another kettle of fish and I'd be very interested indeed
in seeing such a script/program/whatever become part of the long-awaited
"make upgrade" target. :-)

					Jordan