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From: bdale@col.hp.com (Bdale Garbee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: sources?
Message-ID: <9101072247.AA05761@hpcsbg.col.hp.com>
Date: 7 Jan 91 22:47:46 GMT
Sender: news@daver.bungi.com
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Approved: news@daver.bungi.com

> Enough rambling.  What I really set out to say was that there seems
> to be a bootstrap problem.

Yes, very true.

> Therefore, it would be useful also to have working binaries available,
> e.g., for FTP.  Furthermore, when you are posting patches, a short
> description of your system (e.g. what other utilities are needed) would
> be very useful.

Agreed.  I'd go one step further.  I hate having to patch and patch something
that someone else has already merged the patches to and goten running.  I'd
like to see an FTP site with binaries of things folks have made work, *and*
a snapshot of the sources as compiled.  It's easy enough if you really care 
to grab the base version a person worked from, and diff the files yourself to
patch a later base... or for the diffs to be provided too, but I would imagine 
many of us don't really care about the latest rev a lot of the time, we just 
want to make things work without spending all of our potential development 
time duplicating the efforts of others.

I'd rather be building neat new interface hardware than applying patches to
gcc, et al... 'nuff said.

If it's an issue, I can make near-infinite FTP space available on col.hp.com, 
though it appears that there are other places with admins who might take a more
active interest in maintaining such an archive.

Bdale