From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Apr 21 07:31:11 1995 Return-Path: hackers-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id HAA08346 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 21 Apr 1995 07:31:11 -0700 Received: from anvil.appsmiths.com (anvil.appsmiths.com [198.65.131.65]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id HAA08340 for ; Fri, 21 Apr 1995 07:31:06 -0700 Received: (from hoppy@localhost) by anvil.appsmiths.com (8.6.8/8.6.6) id JAA29787 for hackers@FreeBSD.org; Fri, 21 Apr 1995 09:30:43 -0500 From: "Clay D. Hopperdietzel" Message-Id: <199504211430.JAA29787@anvil.appsmiths.com> Subject: Re: Minutes of the Thursday, April 13th core team meeting in Berkeley. To: hackers@FreeBSD.org Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 09:30:42 -0500 (CDT) In-Reply-To: <199504202110.RAA08175@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu> from "Gene Stark" at Apr 20, 95 05:10:12 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2558 Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk :: :: >Let it be forever noted that 2.0 was an exception. [...] :: :: I disagree with this, as the prior release that was burned into CD-ROM :: (1.1) IMHO was also an inferior release due to a rushed testing phase. :: Release 1.1.5.1, which is the best release to date, was essentially the :: result of testing and bug fixes applied to 1.1. [...] Hmm... familiar territory. I have the 1.0 CD for my 1.1.5.1 system, and the 2.0 for my 2.x-development -- neither of which match anything I'm running. More importantly, If somebody rang me up this morning and said "Okay Hoppy, I like this FreeBSD idea you were telling me about. Let's put it on our 200 in-house PC's, when can you start", I would be in a pinch. The excellent comments on how to achive stable releases notwithstanding, the immutability of the CD-ROM once burned (at WC's expense) is at least one aspect of the problem. I suspect that WC would not be pleased to hear about how the "2.0 CDs they spent good money on are no good". If I remember the DEC days right, I used to get a big tape with VMS on it, and then 1-n patch tapes that I had to feed in right behind it if I wanted to get to whatever point release (there were always patches). In fact, the version from the fat 9-track always warned you that you had not applied your patches. (They assumed from the git-go that the big release would never run in that form). Discounting the source-level consumers (who are going to get the current source under their own power anyway), I wonder if it would improve matters if WC could ship a "patch floppy"(s) along with their current "burned" CD version of FreeBSD. Right now, WC could be shipping the 2.0 CD with sufficient patches to turn it into a much-more-stable mid-march version, rather than waiting for D-day to burn another batch. Everyone seems to be unable (for their own good reasons) to get a good release to the field -- even though better snaps exist. The mechanism should be automagic for the binary installation. It should also know how to upgrade an older system in place. To me these are the essance of how prospective users can use FreeBSD without having to be or pay an expert. -- =============================================================================== Clay D. Hopperdietzel hoppy@appsmiths.com AppSmiths, Inc. Voice (713) 578-0154 Fax (713) 578-6182 15915 Katy Fwy, Suite 470 Where do *I* Want to Go Today? Houston, Texas 77094 FreeBSD!