[ On Friday, April 30, 1999 at 22:56:21 (-0700), Jonathan Stone wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: CVSup collections for a NetBSD CVS tree
>
> And any such namecalling should, of course, be addressed to the person
> that chose Modula-3.

One man's opinion!  ;-)

> Surely what the NetBSD community is (and should be) aware of is the
> truth: that if you run NetBSD, then there's a good chance that you
> simply *can't* run CVSUp, even if you wanted to.

s/good//

Yes, I know that.  It seems though that some folks think this would make
NetBSD look bad to in some way, though I can't imagine why, especially
since it would seem that not having CVSup even for a few platforms is
already making NetBSD look bad to some folks (eg. me! ;-)

> Greg, *what* entrenched user base?

I meant that in the future tense -- i.e. the entrenched user base
that'll exist if an equally capable alternative doesn't meet CVSup at
the starting gate.

>  What* benefits?

http://www.polstra.com/projects/freeware/CVSup/

> Right now, CVSup offers me*zero* benefits.

So?  Does this mean you'll be first in line to port M3 to your favourite
platform(s) so that you can benefit from it?  ;-)  Or does this just
mean that you're not going to even think about all of this until such
time that you do have some requirement to use CVSup?

> Just how is the fact that Modula-3 implementations dont exist for most
> NetBSD ports `propaganda'? How is the fact that there are no extant
> SRC Modula-3 ports for some of the CPU architectures NetBSD runs  `propaganda'?

I didn't mean that w.r.t. anything about M3.  I meant that only about
those who've said there might be something better than the current
implementation of CVSup, be it a re-implementation or even a new
protocol.

> The only propaganda I see is the 
>    ``All the worlds an x86, or at least all the world I care about,
>     so screw  *you* if you want fast, effective access to the CVS
>     repository from other platforms''
> message -- the one you articulate so well.

Or alpha or m86k or sparc, all of which I run (or at least own), and all
of which are supportable by the existing M3 compiler.  ;-)  I have a DEC
PMAX, and potentially a vaxstation too, but I can easily make use of the
sources I CVSup on one of the other machines via NFS or some other
high-speed local file sharing mechanism.  I'm also almost certain anyone
serious enough to want to use CVSup can dredge up a junk 486 or even
pentium (especially after new years 2000!) and get NetBSD running on it
with CVSup too.

> To put it more bluntly: if something better than rsync or anoncvs
> is needed, then we *all* need it. CVSUp just is not a solution.

Does *everyone* use SUP now?  NO!  Some folks still ftp the source tars!
Imagine that!  Will everyone use CVSup, even if they can?  NO!  Some
will still FTP the source tars and even the repository tars if they're
made available, and some will still use SUP.  Is anyone seriously
suggesting setting up a public rsync server too?  If so then some people
will no doubt use it.

CVSup is really only the solution for those folks who want a frequently
updated local copy of some or all of the actual CVS repostitory.  Only
really serious third-party developers (i.e. those without CVS access) as
well as possibly those with direct but slow CVS access will ever really
want to use CVSup.  People who just track -current can still be happy
with SUP of the head of the tree unless they want to become serious
developers who regularly dig in and try to find and fix bugs and add new
features and such and who feel it would be helpful to be able to see
specific revisions and RCS logs, etc.  People who only occasionally want
to look at a log entry or a specific delta or whatever will be more
likely to use the annonymous CVS server, or even a CVSWeb interface if
one is made available (which is how I look at FreeBSD stuff now that I'm
no longer working actively with it and regularly generating internal
releases of it for a client).

It *could* be the better solution for folks wanting to obtain a specific
release or branch or whatever, but it doesn't have to be the only
solution, not ever.

To put it extremely bluntly:  CVSup *could* be a better solution for
every NetBSD user that needs it if those that can't yet use it would get
off their duffs and port M3 to their favourite platforms instead of and
telling everyone else that they have to suffer without it too.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>