tls@cloud9.net (Thor Lancelot Simon)  wrote:
> I really don't see what the difference between what several people are
> proposing to do is, and what I'm already doing.
> I have been building binary snapshots essentially every time substantial new
> features are added for some weeks now.  If there's really demand for
> it, I could start doing this on a regular basis every Monday or
> something.

A lot of the difference here is in name. It's one thing to tell someone to
grab the Unofficial/micro/Interim/pre/virtual release from ftp2.netbsd.org,
and somewhat different to say grab a snapshot from Wasabi.

I'm sure what you're doing is appreciated, but to tell you the truth, I
wasn't aware that what you were doing was in the way you specified in your
message. (Stable, semi-weekly...) 

Do you see the value in making identifiable tags for these releases so that
people could track what they were running and report problems etc.. ?

This was the main thrust of why I wrote the original message - to add a 
little more structure to -current versions. Even being in the cabal^H^H^H^H^H
company of long time unix people here in Toronto, I found it hard to get
started on my first -current setup because of the mixed suggestions about
how to go about it. Having a unified source and numbering scheme would
have made my life easier. (Still would too.)

> Is there really demand for this?  I don't see a reason to duplicate
> effort, and we make the binary snapshots on the Wasabi FTP site for
> our own internal consumption, so I'll make them regardless.  I run
> these snapshots on production machines with some very important stuff
> on them, so I tend to be pretty careful not to put stuff up that's not
> stable.
[Original message re-arranged]
> I don't see a whole lot of hits on the Wasabi FTP site.  Is there
> really that much demand for -current snapshots?  Perhaps there should
> be a pointer to us somewhere there's not, or something.

I think the demand for such services will grow if everyone else on these
lists evangelizes the way I do about NetBSD. (About 1 new install a week ;-)

> Lastly, I think the right way to deal with source dates is to have a
> NetBSD (or __NetBSD_Date__) or something variable in param.h; this
> could be used like the BSD value currently is.  That does get a bit
> sticky with CVS, however.

A 'version' in one file doesn't say much about the installed source as a
whole. One utility we could provide would be to check the files on the 
system and warn about ones that don't match the version for that snapshot.

							David Maxwell
							david@web.net