smb (06/14/82)
The source to 2.7 is about 156K bytes. The updates -- editor script plus context -- is about 113K. Is this close enough that Mark should just send out new source instead? (To be sure, the diff's include manual and documen- tation updates, which are not included in my source size.) --Steve
mark (06/15/82)
The total 2.7 distribution is 315K, compared to 114K for the two updates. If only the diff -e were posted, it would be considerably smaller yet. (I really wonder if people are willing to go through those diff -c's by hand - it seems like a LOT of work to me.) There are always copies of the current distribution on ucbvax, harpo, and decvax in ~uucp/news.tar. (cbosg and cbosgd often have them but are not promised.) Probably some other sites should have current copies in a public place, such as src-unix (for the arpanet), zehntel (for the Silicon Valley part of the net) and so on. BTL sites should get the distribution from harpo. It might be possible to post changed files in their entirety to net.sources, if people really want that. But it would be fairly big. An alternative might be to post diffs for man, doc, and misc, but entire src files. Mark
sjb (06/16/82)
May I suggest a totally new approach? Instead of collecting bug fixes for a while and then posting a diff, why not post the single fixes, AS THEY COME IN and are tested, to net.news.b, telling in what source file they belong, where in that file, and what to do. This offers one big advantage over the diffs: Now, when fixes are reported, I am hesitant to put them in, because if I do, I have to save a copy of the old source so that the diffs will work or put up a whole distribution from a tar. Maybe I'll forget to save the copy (it happens) Granted, it could be more work for the people who maintain the source, especially the ones that do it on more than one machine, but if just ONE thing is different in your source than what is in the master source (bad grammar?), the diffs will not work and will totally screw you up. How about, for a while at least, posting the individual fixes and then keep posting those diffs at periods? Adam