nothing from buildsys?

[Bill Rugolsky Jr.]

On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 05:36:52AM -0500, Mike A. Harris wrote:
> As a total side-question though, just for personal curiousity...
> 
> 1) How many people actually download the SRPMS disk images?
 
I routinely download the SRPMS, though I grab them from the SRPMS/
directories on the servers.  Not much interest in the disk images,
since after a few weeks there are dozens if not hundreds of updates.

> 2) How many people actually really use them for anything?
 
I keep SRPMS for several reasons:

   o Local modifications

     I routinely patch:

        kernel
        grub
        SysVinit
        initscripts
        util-linux
        openssh
        iptables
        iproute
        ulogd
        nfs-utils
        patch
        xterm
        vnc
        quagga
        xpdf
        mdadm
        postgresql
        pgadmin3
        valgrind
        gnumeric
        gaim
        ...

   o Creating compat-* packages.  I've been saving the various
     Red Hat compat-*.src.rpm for many years, and when necessary,
     rolling my own.

     When we roll forward to a new distribution, we (re-)build
     compat-* versions of various tools and libraries.  I've got
     vendor object-code interface libraries from RH6.2 and RH7.3. :-(
     SO, e.g., I coaxed compat-gcc-7.3-2.96.126.src.rpm into building
     on FC4/FC5t2.

   o Locally-maintained packages.

     As some packages have been removed from RH/FC, we have had to
     maintain them locally. I recently convinced the RHAS 2.1
     metamail to build on FC4/FC5t2 x86_64, using patches taken from
     the original RH package, SuSE, PLD, and local modifications.

     Also, it's not always the case that newer is better ...

Regards,

        Bill Rugolsky