Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C News production release bugs
Message-ID: <14400@bfmny0.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jun 89 02:03:12 GMT
References: <1989Jun13.034954.144@utstat.uucp> <3309@epimass.EPI.COM> <1989Jun13.211659.11139@utstat.uucp>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff)
Organization: ^
Lines: 35

In article <1989Jun13.211659.11139@utstat.uucp> geoff@utstat.uucp (Geoff Collyer) writes:
>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.  

Well intentioned but this is a doomed policy.  News is too complex to
survive out here in reality without patches and versions.

>				(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.  

The reality is that if C news needs patching and you do not assume control
of the process is a responsive way, the process will go forward unofficially
and even more chaos will result.  Do you really want "samizdat patches"
to get Suns or Strides or whatever working right?

>								We want C
>news to rapidly converge on a stable version.)  

The stability of a version derives from the quality and thoroughness of
the software as distributed - not from the unavailability of fixes.

I agree it's possible to get carried away with patch fever - there should
be firm goals, say one patchlevel every 6 months for a while, then every
year or two - but version numbers MUST exist reliably or things will
become a hopeless muddle.  Grepping for "/relay" on THIS version, something
else NEXT version is no answer.

Infrequent updates should be a practical goal, not an obsession.
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Tom Neff				UUCP:     ...!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
    "Truisms aren't everything."	Internet: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET