Patrick Useldinger wrote: > Nick Holland wrote: > >> UpGRADING (changing functionality, changing version numbers) from source >> is HARD. Having thousands of people thinking they should be able to >> build a new version from some arbitrary old version by source is a >> leading cause of developer hair loss, and helping those people would >> waste an incredible amount of developer time. > > Why is is hard? If I pull the complete sources from cvs, so that every > file used in the Makefiles is present and up to date, the build > process would be just as trivial I assume. In what case would this > _not_ be true? > > (I'm really trying to understand where the risk is) The trouble is, there are a great number of miscellaneous little gotchas, that hit you when you're upgrading an OS, so many that trying to even categorize them is a lost cause, and developers, who want to spend their time getting there own projects done end up becoming mired down spendeing endless time teaching those who don't want to spend the time needed to learn it themselves. It's not that developers WON'T help you, instead, it's that they need to be convenced that you aren't going to become and endless source of questions that they can't spend answering for you.
If they are convinced that you know something, and won't end up just sucking away all their free time, then most of them will help you out, but you're going to have to prove your willingness to invest your own time, BEFORE they will help you. Most developers have been surprised (at least once, anyhow) by the asshole (and excuse the language, but it really applies) who proposes a huge project, gives out assignments, and says that they'll be "organizing" the project, whch means that they want to suck you into doing their work for them. Usually, developers only get surprised once, then they become a lot more wary of helping those who who won't do their own reading and learning for them. > >> ON THE OTHER HAND, upDATING (patching) by source is trivial. It Just >> Works (when you follow the directions). > > Yes, I updated a 3.9 yesterday, and it worked fine. Updating from > source would be just as easy (but quicker). So I understand that it's > more a lack of resources and that you'd be just as fine with binary > upgrades if they were officially supported. > > Which raises a second question - why are packages used for additional > software but not for OpenBSD core? > > Regards, > -pu
