Xref: utzoo comp.bugs.4bsd:1418 comp.sources.d:4115 comp.unix.wizards:18403 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!ukma!mailrus!ames!dftsrv!mimsy!chris From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd,comp.sources.d,comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Bugs in the BSD sources ?? Message-ID: <19900@mimsy.UUCP> Date: 30 Sep 89 18:41:02 GMT References: <1802@cooper.cooper.EDU> <1989Sep30.060807.15103@utzoo.uucp> Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Lines: 27 >In article <1802@cooper.cooper.EDU> hak@cooper.cooper.EDU (Jeff Hakner) writes: >>Are the BSD sources, archived @uunet, among other places, >>the sources to actual, working, tested programs? In article <1989Sep30.060807.15103@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >Uh, this may come as a surprise, but universities generally do not have >quality-control departments. *I* am the quality control department, or at least Kirk, Mike, and Keith [both Keiths] sometimes think so :-) . More seriously: the basic problem here is that the stuff on uunet is built by taking the current source and back-converting it (applying changes to old revisions in the SCCS files). Code built this way is hard to test, because Berkeley CSRG no longer have machines running 4.3BSD-tahoe on which to test them. It does seem, though, that someone should at least run them once through `cc' to check for syntax errors. Also (quite seriously) in many cases it is a matter of getting work done. CSRG are just five people; they simply do not have time to test everything released this way. These fixes only get out because Keith Bostic uses his `spare' time to slap them together and ship them off. If he took much more time for them, nothing else would get done. -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris