davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM (william E Davidsen) writes:
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>In article <1992Aug5.230453.17679@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>, sundaram@cps.msu.edu (Divya Sundaram) writes:
>| Hi all Linuxers,
>| 
>| I have been reading about the "complaints" that there are old versions of 
>| software that are hanging around that are confusing. May I suggest that the 
>| different versions of the OS hould be kept separate. I am trying to sort 
>| everything out and get Linux 0.97. I am often confused by the fact that in 
>| one subdirectory, there are about 4 versions of Linux. Why do we not keep them
>| separate - eg.
...

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>
>  You have a good idea here, but I think it needs a bit of refining. In
>many cases the library version is the culprit when changing things, and
>the new kernel can be used without problems. What would be nice is a
>place for static linked binaries (last resort) and application source,
>which should work on various kernels as binary, and on new gcc libraries
>after linking.
>
>  If the stuff for various kernel levels were sorted by directory as you
>seggest, then dynamic linked binaries could be sorted by library. The
>problem is who's going to have the time to do it?
>
>-- 
>bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
>    I admit that when I was in school I wrote COBOL. But I didn't compile.

i think this is a good idea and easier than you think. the ftp maintainer
can simply create a new directory (directory tree) when a new library or
kernel is created. people who send in binaries will get them placed under
the current tree, where it's easy for others to find. when a new tree is
created, it gets started as pretty much empty, and when stuff is known to
work under the new scheme, it gets moved (or copied, if you want to maintain
some history). the maintainer only has to field requests to move stuff
around, and after several iterations old code will tend to disappear.
source may be maintained separately, or within the heirarchy, as ports tend
to change slightly with different kernel and gcc releases.

zorst
-- 
zorst (orest zborowski)
[obz@raster.Kodak.COM]