Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!amdahl!paf
From: paf@uts.amdahl.com (Paul A. Fronberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: regarding patch level of patch
Keywords: patch
Message-ID: <3eCX02wo28gL01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 18 May 89 04:30:20 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 76

Since sending a mild flame concerning patch levels, I have received two
mail messages besides seeing one reply on the net.

One person from sun said that they were up to 14. mail.
One person said they were up to 12. mail.
One person posted that they were up to 13. posted.

I think the statistics are intersting. By the way, what is the real patch
level for patch. Please post as I don't want my mail box to explode.

My second point about posting something periodically or with the official
patches applied was inspired by the above suspicion. Also:

    1. patch may not be sufficiently up to rev to handle patch file. I've
       run into this problem already. What happens if patch is missing or
       you are missing a level or two to it.

    2. I believe that the total size of the patches to news now exceed the
       size of news originally posted. This is probably true also for pearl
       (at least first release) and also for rn. These are the extreme cases,
       of course, but with critical software such as news or patch, don't we
       want to encourage people to use the most up-to-date and bug-free code
       as possible.

    3. Where do you get some of the patches and distinguish between offical
       patches and ad hoc ones? Some are only available via ARPANET. How
       many times do we see "please send me patch #X for program Y". And
       how many times have we suddenly seen patch #4 and are missing #2 and
       #3. I don't know what the present status of the moderated source
       groups are and what the official patch policies are. I see on archive
       sites the moderated issued patches are included, but I don't know about
       the ones from comp.sources.bugs or other groups (haven't looked
       recently).

    4. A long time problem has been with various levels of news on the net.
       I remember that at one time there were nodes with 2.10.0, 2.10.1,
       2.10.2, 2.10.3, beta 2.11 and released 2.11, not to mention all patch
       levels in between on the net. The fact that it works at all may
       be a major miracle. There appears to be considerable inertia in going
       to a new release unless there are compelling reasons.

    5. The chances of a patch being missed, lost, or corrupted is going to
       increase as the number of patches increase. If you miss one, you
       may not realize it for quite some time. Another suggestion is to
       include the current patch level with the periodic index postings
       for comp.sources and comp.sources.misc.

    6. How many patches are going to go into a program. I have patches 40 and
       beyond for rn (at least one version). At what point do we draw the line
       and say there is a new releaase or do we go on to patch #127.

    7. The readership of USENET is very transient. New readers are constantly
       appearing. New nodes are constantly being added. Not only are they
       going to be missing important net routines posted long ago, but
       the intermideate patches will be missing as well. Without shar, or
       uudecode/encode, or patch, they will be limited in regards to use of
       USENET.

If we can post the maps (4-7 megabytes) once a month (for good reasons),
it seems to me that for 1% more (once a year posting) we can ensure that
everyone at least has access to the fixed, current versions for certain
programs. Note, I am not proposing something be reposted just because of
one or two patches, but for certain netwide critical packages a periodic
posting might be in order. Also when the patch number gets to be 8, 14
or 41, an offical posting might be made to bring the package up to a known
stable release.

Perhaps some sort of "kit" with the commonly requested programs could
be send out once every few months? 1 megabyte or so a year would probably be
sufficient. My canidates would be news, patch, uudecode/encode, arc (or
equivilant), binhex, shar. In short the programs necessary to access and
extract news programs/articles.

I don't know, it's just a few ideas for consideration. This article is getting
longer than I expected and I apologize for stepping on toes, rambling, and
breathing :-)