Re: Update schedule for binary packages?

["J. Lewis Muir" <jlmuir%imca-cat.org@localhost>]

On 08/08, Greg Troxel wrote:
> "J. Lewis Muir" <jlmuir%imca-cat.org@localhost> writes:
> 
> > I found myself wondering what the update schedule is for binary
> > packages, and I couldn't find anything that stated what it is.  I would
> > like to suggest that a statement be added to the readme file of each
> > architecture directory of packages stating what the update schedule is
> > for each directory.
> 
> More or less, for things on netbsd.org
> 
>   current branch, supported OS version:
>     i386/amd64, reasonably frequent

What does "reasonably frequent" mean?  I'm wishing for something more
concrete.

Or I'm wishing for a way to determine that for myself.  For example,
if there were a web page that listed the status of bulk builds and a
history of the output/report from those, I could have a look at that and
presumably see when the last run was, how frequently they run, how long
they take to run, etc.

I looked at

  https://mail-index.netbsd.org/pkgsrc-bulk/

but that's a really poor UI for finding the information I'm looking for.
 
>     anything else, ?
> 
>   pkgsrc-currennt, ?
> 
>   older branches or older OS version: not updated
> 
> There is no schedule, really.  There are just processes that lead to
> i386/amd64 getting updated,

It would be nice if there were a schedule.  Even something like the
following would be helpful: "A bulk build is scheduled to run once a
day, but sometimes it takes up to two days to complete, in which case it
will start a day after it last completed."

> and the bulk build reports are on the pkgsrc-bulk list.

This is a really poor UI for finding what I'm interested in.  Most of
the messages are from Joyent Packages Development; nothing against them
at all, but if I'm looking for a report that corresponds to a particular
set of binary packages on the NetBSD CDN, it's quite difficult to
find.  The other messages appear to be from individual developers,
and I have no idea if they are reports for the binary packages on
the NetBSD CDN or for another repository hosted by those individual
developers.  And still, it's difficult to find the report for the
os-arch-os_ver-pkgsrc_tag combination I'm looking for.

I'm aware of

  https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/reports/

but it doesn't seem to be populated with much at all.  If it were,
I'd use it.  There are a few reports for earmv{6,7}hf, but that's it;
nothing for amd64 or any of the other architectures.

> Has the rule of thumb "pkg_summary.bz being more than a few weeks old is
> a clue that this repo is not being updated" steered you wrong?  (A
> serious question; it seems to me like that would work well.)

That's a reasonable hint, but for all I know, there could be something
in how the files are uploaded or distributed that doesn't preserve the
last-modified-time correctly, and I was wishing for something a little
more concrete than hints or clues here and there.

Thanks!

Lewis