On Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 01:19:51AM -0500, James K. Lowden wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Jan 2003 21:28:13 +0100, Feico Dillema <feico@pasta.cs.uit.no>
> wrote:
> > I like the idea of a
> > stable (and secure) pkgsrc branch for at least the latest NetBSD
> > release.
> 
> I think you're overlooking the NetBSD release cycle.  I can name offhand
> half a dozen packages I use that had several releases between NetBSD's
> 1.5.2 and 1.6.  With 3000-odd packages in pkgsrc, you want to wait a year
> before updating them?  
My primary interest for the 1.6 branch is for our server that runs a
limited set of services and has a limited set of packages installed,
that are basically maintained under the motto: "if it ain't broken
don't fix it". I am rarely interested in 'upgrading' to a new release
of a package unless it is for security reasons and serious bugs. For
my desktop machines I don't mind running the risk of a long update
process and temporary loss of installed packages too much (if emacs is
not there, there's always vi, right?). But for public or shared
services/servers you want to minimize downtime and maintenance time.

Well, the arguments for a 1.6 branch of pkgsrc are not that different
from those for a 1.6 branch for NetBSD! I am often tempted with new
goodies in NetBSD-current and I often end up following it on a desktop
machine or two, but it is nice to have releases for machines where
availability is more important.

Of course, tagging successfull bulk builds of pkgsrc-current may be a
nice low-cost additional thing to do.

Feico.