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- Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!cs.utexas.edu!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!portal.austin.ibm.com!awdprime.austin.ibm.com!jaws1.Berkeley.EDU!jaws
- From: jaws@jaws1.austin.ibm.com (Jason A. Woods)
- Subject: Re: Legalities of making PTFs available for ftp?
- Sender: news@austin.ibm.com (News id)
- Message-ID: <C17zEv.1Jo6@austin.ibm.com>
- Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 19:56:55 GMT
- Reply-To: YOURLOGIN@YOURCOMPUTER.austin.ibm.com
- References: <1jkq6qINNl1g@mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE> <1993Jan19.171004.69432@crs4.it> <C15ssG.t7u@austin.ibm.com>
- Organization: IBM Austin
- Lines: 38
-
- >If they make mistakes they should make the PTF's available as easy as
- possible.
- >The approach that every site should phone customer support for getting fixes
- >with snake-mail may have right in the late 70's with only a few VM-systems
- >around the world :-) At least I would expect distribution via anon ftp
- >by IBM. But I would prefer a distribution via NFS. Look at the MIT X11-distri-
- >bution process.
- >
- >But what do they?
- >- there seems to be no quality assurance.
- >- there is no electronic online help from IBM for their bugs
- >
- >So I think it would be a good idea if some friendly soul would set up
- >a anon ftp with most urgent bugfixes (Gt4X, qdaemon, etc.).
- >
- >In former times they said: THINK.
-
- I agree. BUT, before some kind and frinedly sole commits themselves
- to a life of PTF slavery, be aware of some of the caveats:
- 1 - Any "self-respecting,worth anything,made in the
- last 6-monthes" PTF with its pre-,if-,and co-reqs,
- would generally occupy around 100meg. :-)
- 2 - You would need to get the latest ptfs, I believe
- weekly, from some kind sole that can get them
- for you (unless an IBM'er is willing to do this). B-)
- 3 - You have to take responsibility for the program you
- write to assemble the pre,if and co reqs for the ptf being
- built, in case anything goes wrong.
- 4 - Many other things you have to think about - such
- as where the fix is going to be built - on the server
- or on the requesting machine, etc. . .
-
- But by all means, go ahead and try . . .
-
- Jason Woods - Go Ahead, Take A RISC . . .
- AIX Software Defect Support
-
- DISCLAIMER - "I did it during lunch . . .really"
-