Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!geoff
From: geoff@utstat.uucp (Geoff Collyer)
Subject: Re: C News production release bugs
Message-ID: <1989Jun13.211659.11139@utstat.uucp>
Organization: Statistics, U. of Toronto
References: <1989Jun13.034954.144@utstat.uucp> <3309@epimass.EPI.COM>
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 89 21:16:59 GMT

Henry and I discussed modifying version numbers and the like yesterday,
but decided that we don't want to *have* multiple versions of C news in
the field, if we can avoid it.  (We don't particularly like version
numbers like C news 3.11vr2 and do not want to buy into the patchlevel
bureaucracy, since it encourages patches by making them easy.  We want C
news to rapidly converge on a stable version.)  One can distinguish the
initial production distribution from the updated one by size or by
grepping for "/relay" in relay/aux/mkpdir; it you find one, you have the
updated one.

Given that Henry is at Usenix this week, and thus difficult (though not
impossible) to reach, I am going to continue this policy for the rest of
the week (or until Henry and I decide otherwise): any other bugs fixed
will be fixed on the usual ftp or uucp distribution sites (utzoo, utgpu,
uunet, utai, radio.astro, osu-cis, etc.) as soon as possible, posted to
news.software.b and comp.sources.d, mailed to our beta testers, and
mailed to Rich Salz for inclusion with the comp.sources.unix release
(he's at Usenix too this week).  The comp.sources.unix release (which
will match the ftp and uucp distributions) will be the base release for
any future changes.

Consider also that yesterday's fixes (ignoring updates to comments)
amounted to moving 4 lines of code, changing 2 lines, and adding 1 line.
If you don't trust the patch program to apply the context diffs, it's
easy to fix the sources by hand.

We have had a couple bug reports today.  Sigh.  One I need to
investigate and the other seems to be configuration problems which Henry
will have to sort out.  We do want to stop issuing patches as soon as we
can.  If we are unfortunate enough to have to issue patches after the
comp.sources.unix release, we will have to reconsider version numbers or
patchlevel files or something.  If we are fortunate, it should not be an
issue.
-- 
Geoff Collyer		utzoo!utstat!geoff, geoff@utstat.toronto.edu
``... skill such as yours is evidence of a misspent youth.'' - Herbert Spencer