Danek Duvall wrote:
> On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 01:52:48PM -0500, Norm Jacobs wrote:
>
>
>> The SFW build has it's "issues" and we need to look at ways to improve how
>> we build, but I want to be sure that we don't lose any of it's benefits in
>> the process. One of the reasons that we are currently asking for folks to
>> build everything in the gate is that we want to avoid accidental
>> dependencies showing up after integration.
>>
>
> So one way of dealing with that is not to upgrade the build machine's OS
> all the time, but only when absolutely required, to get a particular
> feature. And never to build with any of the SFW packages installed on the
> build machine.
>
I guess that the way I see it, by upgrading the systems that folks build
on sooner, we are more likely to catch "accidental" dependencies up
front and more likely to get resolution either prior to integration or
while the responsible parties are more engaged. Without upgrading more
frequently, we are likely to miss several of the "absolutely required"
upgrades and just push the issues out. That and I'm a masochist, so I
tend to run the most current IPS or SVR4 packaged bits on my system and
often build things there. I suspect that I'm not alone. :-\
> This would have the added benefit of allowing us to make new SFW packages
> available for old builds, rather than forcing people to upgrade their
> entire OS just to get, say, mutt.
>
As long as the mutt dependencies are accurate and granular enough, they
don't have to upgrade the entire OS. They only need to install/upgrade
the bits that mutt requires (and anything that results from those
changes). It's possible that those dependencies will require upgrading
the entire OS, but more often that is not the case.
FWIW, at least for SFW, I would really like to be tracking and auditing
the imported and exported interface changes at a more granular level so
that we get a better picture of the change that we are managing.
-Norm
