Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 09:55:13 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Brett Taylor <brett@peloton.physics.montana.edu>, Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> Cc: Bill Fumerola <billf@chc-chimes.com>, Adam Turoff <aturoff@isinet.com>, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Ports Message-ID: <4.1.19990309094137.04170100@localhost> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903090922530.20218-100000@peloton.physics.m ontana.edu> References: <36E4D59E.89ACD0F4@softweyr.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
At 09:36 AM 3/9/99 -0700, Brett Taylor wrote: >Wes you're talking to a brick wall. Brett wants the best of all worlds - >he wants to run old releases and yet still follow the cutting edge of >ports. The main reason to get RECENT (if not "cutting edge") ports is to close security holes. No one's system should be compromised because he or she can't get a version that's immune to the latest "skript kiddie" exploit. >Now he'll say he can't track ports because he's running 2.2.8-RELEASE. He >can but he's unwilling to accept that some things may not work because >ports track -STABLE and the conversion from a.out to ELF caused a lot of >hassle for the ports team. It's not professional to leave users of older versions of one's software without access to important utilities and upgrades. Yes, this should have been thought through before the ELF conversion, but now it's hitting those of us who have another two 3.x releases before our next upgrade. >What, Brett do work? He's unwilling to be maintainer on a single port >less yet all 2100 for X.X.X-RELEASE (where X.X.X is the version Brett is >running) - I wouldn't hold your breath here. Give me a break. No one has asked me to maintain a port to date. What's more, if what you say above is correct, I *can't* maintain a port on the 2.2.8 systems we're running here. >Oh yeah - sorry 3.1-STABLE. Sorry - that is versionless huh. I wonder >what the 3.1 means? In thie case of "3.1-STABLE," it means that it's one of a mass of daily builds, each with varying degrees of stability and security. It's not appropriate for mission critical systems. To quote the FreeBSD Handbook: | Please note that the stable tree endeavors, above all, to be fully | compilable and stable at all times, but we do occasionally make mistakes | (these are still active sources with quickly-transmitted updates, after | all). We also do our best to thoroughly test fixes in current before | bringing them into stable, but sometimes our tests fail to catch every case. Not acceptable for a machine that must be available 24x7. >And again, Wes notes the key point Brett can't seem to grasp: it's a >volunteer effort. Even volunteers should be professional. They should support others (and themselves!) when maximum reliability is needed. >Brett, why don't you do what you said you were going to do in another >thread and go roll out BBSD (Brett's BSD) and go promote that and maintain >ports for all releases for all time and leave the FreeBSD lists alone. Because that would be silly and wasteful. It should be possible, in fact easy, for support for earlier versions to be rolled in automatically as the port maintainer goes about his or her usual work. It seems to me that you've got your head in the sand here -- so much so that you're in denial about this need rather than thinking about ways to address it. --Brett Glass To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4.1.19990309094137.04170100>