> Chris G Demetriou said:
> > 
> > > 	Unfortunately, amiga/ is a softlink, not a tree, and 
> > > therefore seemingly excludes amiga specific binaries.
> > 
> > "look before you leap."
> > 
> > 4 [sun-lamp] amiga % pwd
> > /a/anon_ftp/pub/NetBSD/arch/amiga
> > 5 [sun-lamp] amiga % ls
> > snapshot/       utils/
> > 
> > no, there's a directory there all right.
> 
> 	I think we're talking about different places.  There isn't a 
> NetBSD/arch/m68k8k.
> 
> sun-lamp.cs.berkeley.edu:/pub/NetBSD/packages/binaries/NetBSD-1.0
> ncftp>ls -l amiga
> lrwxr-xr-x    1 1073            6 Mar  9 14:12 amiga@ -> m68k8k
> 
> 	What is NetBSD/arch/* for, anyway?  The purpose is not apparent 
> from it's name.  I think it would be an excellent idea to put full 
> trees there, rather than having things for each architecture split up all 
> over the place. Suggestion:  bin-dist/, experimental/, kernel/, tools/, and 
> contrib/, with a NetBSD/arch/m68k8k containing packages common to the 3 
> m68k8k ports.  Everything in one place for each version (1.0 or -current) 
> and architecture combination.

The way things are set up now:

pub/NetBSD/...

NetBSD-1.0/

	The NetBSD 1.0 release, in its entirety.  sources, binaries
	for all architectures, etc.

NetBSD-1.0-ports@

	Ports to NetBSD 1.0 (a symlink into a dir. in packages.)

NetBSD-current/

	NetBSD-current sources and tar-balls.

arch/

	"whatever the port maintainers for the various ports want to
	put here, for their port."  Generally things like binary
	snapshots of -current, etc.

mailing-lists/

	Mailing list archives

misc/

	Miscellaneous stuff.

packages/

	binary/source packages.  Some for 1.0, some not.
	split up as:
		...1.0/${ARCH}
		...current/${ARCH}



One of the reasons for this organization is so that people who are
mirroring the software, or are distributing it in some way, can easily
pick what they want to mirror or distribute.

For instance, most mirrors (in fact, _all_ that want to be recognized as
NetBSD mirror sites) will want the latest release in its entirety.
Most will want the packages for 1.0, and some will even want -current
and the packages for -current.

Many will _NOT_ want all of the "random" architecture-specific stuff
that goes in 'arch'.


It is decidedly _NOT_ appropriate to move the contents of the 1.0 or
1.0-packages hierarchies into per-architecture directories; the 1.0
and 1.0 packages collections are logical units, and to treat them as
anything else is:
	(1) a maintenance nightmare for us,
	(2) a maintenance nightmare for mirrors,
	(3) a problem for people distributing the software.

It's also worth noting that 'naive' users will be drawn to the "most
obvious" directory for the latest release, i.e. if they hear about
"NetBSD 1.0", they'll gravitate towards .../NetBSD-1.0 and
.../NetBSD-1.0-ports.  (probably better called -packages; that'll be
fixed next time around...)


Just so you know where _i'm_ coming from:
	(1) i'm trying to encourage maximal distribution of NetBSD,
		_ALL_ ports of NetBSD,
	(2) i'm trying to make sure that that NetBSD distribution
		happens in an "officially sanctioned way,"
	(3) that "way" is reasonably "clean."

While i agree that some of the parts of the ftp.netbsd.org tree could
maybe use some reorganization, i think for the most part it's fine
as-is.


As i've said, anybody that wants to work on this should get in touch
with me ... i think private mail is more appropriate, because the
people on 'amiga' are probably tiring of this by now, and i don't have 
nearly enough time to be regularly making responses to a mailing list...
(Whee; you know you have a problem when you're working 13 hours a day,
and are _STILL_ falling behind...)  Actually, it's probably
appropriate to mail both Chris Hopps (chopps@netbsd.org) and I about
it, especially since it concerns the orgnization of the arch/amiga tree.


cgd