Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 23:16:46 -0500 From: Mark Mayo <mark@vmunix.com> To: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SUID-Directories patch Message-ID: <19971114231646.51209@vmunix.com> In-Reply-To: <346CDDE4.5656AEC7@whistle.com>; from Julian Elischer on Fri, Nov 14, 1997 at 03:25:24PM -0800 References: <9942.879515612@time.cdrom.com> <346CDDE4.5656AEC7@whistle.com>
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On Fri, Nov 14, 1997 at 03:25:24PM -0800, Julian Elischer wrote: > Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > > > However, like all projects, we've also matured over the last 4+ years > > and with that maturity has come a greater degree of conservatism in > > how we do development and in what we expect from any contributor who > > seeks to take on a fairly major chunk of development. What might have > > been considered reasonably acceptable development practice 4 or even 2 > > years ago simply won't fly now that we have a much larger user base > > and are under considerable pressure to produce a professional quality > > operating system which sets itself well apart from our "competition" > > in this arena. > > ok, then we need another place for 'bleeding edge' then. > SMP is anexample of development going on in -current, that > defies both your categories below. If we make -curent into > -stable, then where does the development go? Development needs > to go somewhere where people can test it out and take it for a > test-drive. I think my project database will sort of serve this purpose. The idea is to have a central, organized repository that lists the projects that are happening outside the main FreeBSD -CURRENT and -STABLE trees. My idea is to have a Project Page that contains information about projects: Project Title, Description, Team Leader, Members, etc, etc.. The entire thing is worked from a web page, and people can browse projects, if they're interested in checking out the work of the project (a SUID patch for Samba sites, for example) they just cruise on over to the project web page and grab the goods. People can also of course join projects, suggest projects, etc. It's become obvious that it would be good to encourage more development from beginers, or bleeding edge work, and it's also obvious that much of this stuff doesn't belong in the main FreeBSD CVS trees. I think a project database would work wonders; it will allow more creative development projects, encourage the up and coming young guns to write more code, and it still sticks with the more organised, central approach of FreeBSD. I'm building the thing ontop of the PostgreSQL relational database, controlled competely from the web. I've got the design done, and I'm going to post it here next week for feedback. I've also got a good part of it coded up, I'm hoping it will be ready for public review within 2 weeks. I have a week of exams coming up, after which I should have enough time to finish the prototype... I also have to finish some parts of the FreeBSD book I'm working on with Chris Coleman.. ahh, if only there were more hours in the day... :-) I'm stumbling on technical problems right now - I've been testing PostgreSQL with some high loads (trying to simulate 1 million+ hits a night) and it appears to leak memory like a stuck pig.. It's also core dumped on me twice.. Luckily I've tracked down the problem and the PostgreSQL team says it's fixed now! The only other thing I'm not sure of is whether or not the project database should actually maintain its own CVS tree of code from the various projects.. Initally at least, it will just contain hyperlinks to offsite project pages - it might be nice, however, if people could use the familiar CVSup interface to suck down a project they are interested in. This does become a maintanence hassle, however, since it implies that the project leaders have to check code in, blah, blah.. It might discourage development, so my initial impression is to just point to web pages, or at the most have a mechanism to drop off and check out tar-balls integrated into the web interface. Thoughts? Anyways, I'll keep -hackers posted when the system is ready to be prototyped. cya, -Mark -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Mayo mark@vmunix.com RingZero Comp. http://www.vmunix.com/mark finger mark@vmunix.com for my PGP key and GCS code ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Win95/NT - 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition. -UGU
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