Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!decvax!zinn!ubbs-nh!noel From: noel@ubbs-nh.MV.COM (Noel B. Del More Nashua) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: Posting Patches; Was Patch frequency Keywords: Patches, News Message-ID: <340@ubbs-nh.MV.COM> Date: 16 May 89 16:10:09 GMT References: Reply-To: noel@ubbs-nh.MV.COM (Noel B. Del More Nashua) Organization: uBBS-NH (New England Unix Archive) - Nashua, NH Lines: 61 In article paf@uts.amdahl.com (Paul A. Fronberg) writes: > >One is that the patches may not be posted in a commonly read newsgroup. Quite true, and a royal pain as well! >I claim that all offical patches should be issued through the moderated source >group that the program was originally posted. This would allow easier >administration of fixes and put them in a known group. This is an idea that has alot of merit. While it would result in some inconvienence, in that the patch would have to pass through the moderator resulting in some delay reaching the end user of the program, it would introduce some degree of consistency into the posting of patches. What would be nice would be to use the original volume name of the posted program with the patch level appended to it, eg. v18015-p1, although any standard catologing scheme would do just as well. And it would also be nice if their was a companion "patch" newsgroup for each of the newsgroups to which sources are posted, eg. "comp.sources.unix.p" or something similar. I would have suggested that "official" patches be posted to the same newsgroup as to which the original was posted but that might not be possible, wise or too much of an additional burden on the moderators of these groups. In summary, the advantages to posting patches to a moderated newsgroup are consistency of format, and absence of "chatter" in the newsgroup which in turn would allow archive sites to process these postings in a more efficient manner. The disadvantages are increased time for the posting to reach the end user. I'm sure that others will point out other advantages and/or disadvantages, but what do you expect on only one cup of coffee. B-) I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say about the subject, is the idea worth further investigation and possible call for discussion. >The second problem is that with certain critical programs (news, patch) it >probably makes sense, at some point, to do a repost with all the patches >applied. > >Perhaps certain programs should be periodically posted once a quarter or once a >year just to ensure that the community has up to date versions. With the above approach, it would probably not be necessary to repost "critical" programs except for major upgrades and new releases. Noel -- Noel B. Del More | decvax!ubbs-nh!noel 17 Meredith Drive | noel@ubbs-nh.mv.com Nashua, New Hampshire 03063 | It's unix me son! `taint spozed tah make cents