On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, Jukka Marin wrote:

> > If having bounce buffers is your overriding technical concern, then you
> > simply should not be running NetBSD, because it doesn't address that concern.
> > (Unless, of course, you are willing to maintain a local patch.)  If it is
> > not your overriding technical concern, then insisting that people abandon
> > their concern for code quality in exchange for a quick fix is certainly
> > inappropriate.
> 
> Would it be possible to maintain some "official" patches for bounce buffers,
> com drivers, new device drivers that haven't been included in the tree etc.?
> Some system to make it easy to install the selected patches in -current and
> the release versions?
> 
> Maybe the patches could be maintained in parallel with the "standard" code
> and included in /src/patches, for example?  Anyone could cd to
> /src/patches/whatever and 'make install' there?  This would make it easier
> to install a patch.  It might give more users the opportunity to try out
> different "new" things like device drivers, so there would be more "beta
> testers" for these things before they get included in the real tree?
> It would also save lots of time for those who _need_ those things to be
> able to run NetBSD at all.  No need to go hunting for various patches,
> try to get them compiled under the latest -current etc.

One thing we might explore (digressing from bounce buffers) is making
greater use of lkm's. In 1.2, we ship examples in /usr/share/lkm, but no
real live lkm's. I think patches went into the hidden -current with a lot
of file systems as lkm's. So when it comes out, maybe we should make a
/usr/lkm, and throw lots of stuff in. We could have trial device drivers
(like faster com ports) and other for-beta-test things in a public part of
the tree.

Those who want to use the new code can, and those who don't don't have to
deal with it. :-)

Take care,

Bill