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Date:      Wed, 14 Feb 2001 09:00:18 -0800 (PST)
From:      Brian Behlendorf <brian@collab.net>
To:        Doug Barton <DougB@gorean.org>
Cc:        Greg Troxel <gdt@fnord.ir.bbn.com>, <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG>, Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org>
Subject:   Re: Upgrading config files (Was: Re: sshd in 4.2-STABLE)
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.31.0102140850350.491-100000@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <3A8A1CF3.264A5C70@gorean.org>

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On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Doug Barton wrote:
> 	So, the question now is, does upgrading by default without forcing the
> user to see the changes unload the gun, or just point it at a different
> foot?

The way I see it, when I do a make world, there are *lots* of things being
upgraded without my awareness.  The fact that something is being changed
in /sbin/init is not all that different than something being changed in
/etc/rc or /dev/MAKEDEV.  I don't track changes in the first case (unless
I follow cvs commits) and I probably won't care in the latter.  I'm hard
pressed to think of a file that, if I didn't edit at some point, I would
care about being updated.

> My feeling is that all we're doing is replacing one set of
> problems with another, and losing the opportunity to educate the users
> in the process. I have long been an advocate of both making "The Right
> Thing" easier to understand and to accomplish, but at some level you
> just can't make unix system administration any easier.

There are tradeoffs, certainly.  I wouldn't argue for making the
replace-unless-changed algorithm the default, at least not at this point
until people had a chance to work with it and found any hidden gotchas
that such an approach has.

	Brian





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