On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Greg A. Woods wrote:

: There are some very clear differences in the way the build in gnu/
: works, esp. when you look at places like gnu/usr.bin/sdiff, or
: gnu/usr.bin/ld.new.

There's a reason ld.new build like it does - and IMNSHO, more software
in-tree (ipf, for example) should use it.

: There's also the most inelegant and annoying duplication in gnu/dist.
: If the *real* intent of segregation were only to provide a single
: sub-tree where all GNU licensed software could be bundled from for
: redistribution, then /usr/src/gnu/dist should be more than sufficient.

Actually, that's part of the intent.  Not everything is in gnu/dist yet,
though.

: Everything could simply be rolled into the right place with simple
: gnu-*2netbsd scripts, just as is done for any other "contributed"
: software.

*2netbsd scripts are Evil and need to die.  Pmake provides a very elegant
way of dealing with third party source *without* frobbing its natural
distribution layout.

: Oh, come now!  What's so hard about using 'grep' or similar to maintain
: a list of files using a given copyright and then handing that list to
: the archiver of your choice to bundle all the referenced files up????

It's more tedious than, say, `tar cf gnusrc.tar src/gnu'.

: The list should even be maintained by NetBSD folks, so that it is known
: to be canonical before a release ships to someone who might want to do
: this.

If you really think it's that easy, why don't *you* maintain that list?
`What a waste of personnel cycles.'  (sort of like arguing over what's
already in use, like in this thread.)

:  Your argument implies that all non-CSRG software should be dropped into
: a contrib directory just like the FreeBSD folks are doing,

*My* argument said no such thing.  Perhaps you're referring to someone else
in the thread?

[And from earlier in the same message,]

: Segregating software that's otherwise tightly integrated just for a few
: vendors is just plain silly,

And you've had to turn NetBSD into a commercially distributed system how
many times?  I tend to agree with cgd's very short comments on this point.
I'm backing out of the thread now.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Bus. todd_vierling@xn.xerox.com)