From owner-freebsd-hackers  Fri May 17 06:15:13 1996
Return-Path: owner-hackers
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id GAA15660
          for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 17 May 1996 06:15:13 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id GAA15655
          for <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>; Fri, 17 May 1996 06:15:11 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.7.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id GAA03218; Fri, 17 May 1996 06:14:52 -0700 (PDT)
To: "Richard Wackerbarth" <rkw@dataplex.net>
cc: "Michael Smith" <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>,
        "FreeBSD Hackers" <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: Re: Standard Shipping Containers 
In-reply-to: Your message of "17 May 1996 07:43:41 CDT."
             <n1379803457.92277@Richard Wackerbarth> 
Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 06:14:52 -0700
Message-ID: <3216.832338892@time.cdrom.com>
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

> [ Various arguments about CTM, CVS and so on elided ]

Here's my perspective on all of this...

There are 3 ways of getting the sources:

	1. Extract the srcdist tarball.
	2. Sup:
	  2a. Configure sup file.
	  2b. Run supfile first time.
	  3c. Add optional sup entry to crontab.
	3. CTM
	  3a. Unpack initial deltas
	  3b. Subscribe to appropriate mailing list.
	  3c. Add optional alias to aliases.

All three of these techniques constitute perfectly reasonable ways of
getting the sources, depending on your needs.  Only one of these
techniques is automated enough to make it currently usable a in semi-
automated fashion by sysinstall, however, and that's #1.

If anyone on either side of the great sup vs CTM debate would care to
automate steps a-c for their syncronization mechanism of choice, I'll
be more than happy to help with the actual integration of same into
sysinstall.  The installation procedure should, of course, be as
novice-friendly as sysinstall in general (so I'm not setting the goals
all that high :-) and implemented in a manner similar to the
configApache() or configSamba() routines (see /usr/src/release/sysinstall
sources for details).

I personally think that this feature is overdue, but I haven't time to
implement configSUP() and configCTM() myself so I'd really need
someone else to do the coding.  Considering the relative paucity of
questions to ask ("What directory do you want to keep your sources
in?"), it should be a fairly easy task.

					Jordan