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Date:      Sat, 27 Mar 1999 15:21:50 +0000
From:      Neil Blakey-Milner <nbm@mithrandr.moria.org>
To:        Satoshi Asami <asami@FreeBSD.ORG>
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>
In-Reply-To: <199903261348.FAA18790@silvia.hip.berkeley.edu>; from Satoshi Asami on Fri, Mar 26, 1999 at 05:48:50AM -0800
References:  <199903261302.IAA19553@istari.home.net> <199903261348.FAA18790@silvia.hip.berkeley.edu>

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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


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