Re: [Bacula-users] [Bacula-devel] Patches

[David B. <db...@si...>]

ne thing i am missing are patched packages, rpm and also deb packages
> > have a mechanism to include patch files an apply during build
process.
> >
> > For most bacula users it would be much easier to apply patches by
"rpm
> > -U ..." or "dpkg install ...".
> 
> Yes, but you have to build, test and release a package for each disto
> after
> each patch, this is a *huge* amount of work, we have something like 10
> patches between two releases.

We use tinderbox to do this. I know others that use the SuSE build farm
tools. There is an initial startup cost to setting up automated build
and test, but longer term, it's a win in that you are able to just dump
the patch into a directory and get the packages for all your supported
architectures 12 hours later. You already have ctest set up, and if
you're going to run commercial operations, you probably are going to
need test infrastructure anyway, so you might as well buck up and do it
right. 

> If someone want to build, test and package 10 more often than before
for
> free,
> no problem, but i prefere spend my time with new features and bugs
> hunting.

2nd option is to package the source diffs into RPM and APT, and provide
those via a repository. Applying a diff is a fairly simple operation,
and people who care about most recent binaries can do rpmbuild -bb on
their own systems easily enough if the source is correctly packaged. 

Coming up with a source patch RPM and APT template isn't rocket science,
and it's basic support discipline to not release applications or updates
that circumvent the software management system if there is one.