From owner-freebsd-ports Sat Mar 27 5:17:54 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from rucus.ru.ac.za (rucus.ru.ac.za [146.231.29.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D1EEA1508B for ; Sat, 27 Mar 1999 05:17:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from nbm@rucus.ru.ac.za) Received: (qmail 59066 invoked by uid 1003); 27 Mar 1999 15:21:50 -0000 Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 15:21:50 +0000 From: Neil Blakey-Milner To: Satoshi Asami Cc: sjr@home.net, jim@corp.au.triax.com, jorbeton@pilot.net, freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: CVSup and Fetch Message-ID: <19990327152150.A57118@rucus.ru.ac.za> References: <199903261302.IAA19553@istari.home.net> <199903261348.FAA18790@silvia.hip.berkeley.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.1i In-Reply-To: <199903261348.FAA18790@silvia.hip.berkeley.edu>; from Satoshi Asami on Fri, Mar 26, 1999 at 05:48:50AM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Fri 1999-03-26 (05:48), Satoshi Asami wrote: > How about something like this? A file (/var/db/pkg/VERSION) records > the "version" of the system. The "version" is a number derived by > concatenating the year/month/date -- so it's "19990326" today. If the > "version" is too old, bsd.port.mk refuses to do anything. > > bsd.port.mk has a variable that contains the required version. When I > know there is an incompatible update, I'll change the BSDPORTMKVERSION > line. Damn, I was about to send-pr a system very much like this. A few problems, I think - it's probably a bad idea to make the ports system "not work" due to having an old system. For example, if someone commits my changes to pkg_* which allows for LICENSE=GPL variables, or pkg/LICENSE files two days after someone adds a new command line option for fetch, people are likely to become irritated. I think a better idea is to rather keep support for at least a release (theoretically 3 months), using checks around places in bsd.port.mk that use things in new versions. Just before a release, someone goes through bsd.port.mk removing unneeded checks, and bumps a variable which then becomes the minimum version of /var/db/pkg/.mkversion (or whatever), and then everyone has to upgrade. Between releases, if you want added functionality, you use the upgrade kits. An added bonus is that you now have a check to see if there's a new upgrade kit available, and we can warn people about it, yet allow them to use the system. This all changes if there's something that is entirely not backwards compatible, although this shouldn't happen. Yes, I volunteer to send patches every 3 months to get rid of unneeded crud. Neil -- Neil Blakey-Milner nbm@rucus.ru.ac.za To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message