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Re: Introducing the patchadd binary patch toolchain



On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 08:03:55PM +0300, Elad Efrat wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 7:54 PM, Thor Lancelot Simon 
> <tls%rek.tjls.com@localhost> wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 06:41:35PM +0200, Tonnerre LOMBARD wrote:
> >>
> >> > You're too busy to explain why we want something one way, but you're
> >> > not too busy to implement your ideas and put them in pkgsrc?
> >>
> >> That's correct.
> >
> > I'm not sure the way anyone's discussing this is pretty helpful, but I
> > don't think it hurts anyone to add a tool to pkgsrc.  It's not part of
> > the base system, and nobody is forced to use it, after all.
> 
> I'm looking ahead, for when it might be suggested that this tool is
> officially endorsed to update NetBSD, or even imported to base. I
> couldn't care less about arbitrary tools making their way to pkgsrc.
> 
> See the first paragraph in
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-userlevel/2009/04/27/msg002059.html

I read that paragraph as Tonnerre's motivation for making his work
public and easily available.  I don't see it as a statement of what TNF
is going to do to make system updates easier.

In the end, it is up to the people who will be doing the arguably hard
work (no matter which tool is used for the job) of producing the binary
updates.  I would say those people are releng@ and security-officer@.

Given the total lack of history of binary updates in NetBSD, my very own
opinion is that any such tool should be focused primarily on making the
production of binary updates as easy as possible.  I'm fairly certain
the users will agree with pretty much anything that will give them
binary updates they can install and roll back with sustainable pain.

I think the main risk is at the production level.  If it is not easy
enough, it will be too much for the time releng@ and s-o@ have.

So I'd very much like to see this discussion turn towards the way the
tools (any of them) can be used by releng@, e.g. how they can be tied to
the autobuild system, and so on.  This is what matters most to me.

-- 
Quentin Garnier - cube%cubidou.net@localhost - cube%NetBSD.org@localhost
"See the look on my face from staying too long in one place
[...] every time the morning breaks I know I'm closer to falling"
KT Tunstall, Saving My Face, Drastic Fantastic, 2007.

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