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