From lanl!hc!lll-winken!uunet!ibmpa!bullhead!brunner Mon Jul 24 15:18:54 EDT 1989
Article 961 of comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt:
Path: cmcl2!lanl!hc!lll-winken!uunet!ibmpa!bullhead!brunner
>From: brunner@bullhead.uucp
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Subject: Distribution of IBM/4.3 fixes (technical advisory)
Summary: Note to IBM/4.3 technical contacts (site support)
Keywords: V1.2
Message-ID: <1493@ibmpa.UUCP>
Date: 21 Jul 89 17:48:02 GMT
Sender: news@ibmpa.UUCP
Reply-To: brunner@ibmsupt.UUCP (Thomas Eric Brunner)
Organization: IBM AWD Palo Alto
Lines: 143

The following letter will soon be received by the technical
contact at each IBM/4.3 licensed site. It concerns a change
in the organization of fixes which may be applied to IBM/4.3.
The change it refers to has been described in a posting to
this newsgroup. This note is Volume 1, number 2 (V1.2).

Eric Brunner

===================================================================





IBM Advanced Workstation Division
1510 Page Mill Road
M/S 35A
Palo Alto, CA 94304


Dear Colleague,



     A revision to the organization of the  on-line  support
for IBM/4.3 at IBM Palo Alto has commenced this month.  This
note describes the changes that have been made so that sites
which  make use of on-line support can continue to apply bug
fixes to their release.  The change discussed in  this  memo
is  motivated  by a desire to improve the quality of support
offered to IBM/4.3 customers.

     IBM/4.3 is a  PRPQ  product  in  source  form.   It  is
comprised  of  major sub-systems which are under development
within the research community, and for  which  exchanges  of
fixes and enhancements in source form is the prevalent prac-
tice.  Examples subsystems are the Andrew File System (CMU),
the X11 window system (MIT), and the Berkeley release of the
operating system and utilities.

     Prior to this month, fixes to the product  were  organ-
ized  only  within  the  notes-based  APAR bug reporting and
tracking system.  As several APARs are duplicates or  varia-
tions  on common problems, (e.g., those APARs concerning the
asychronous line driver),  this  form  of  publishing  fixes
occasionally requires extensive interactive traversal of the
notesfiles to obtain  a  fix.   In  order  to  improve  con-
sistency,  we  are  reorganizing the structure and format of
fixes.

     Fixes to IBM/4.3 are now sequentially numbered within a
volume,  and  to the greatest extent possible, the format of
each fix is a forward context diff, suitable for  multi-file
and  multi-directory  automatic  installation  via the patch
program.  The fixes are all located on IBMSUPT as individual
files  within a subdirectory of the publically readable UUCP
spool  directory  (/usr/spool/uucppublic/ibm43-fixes).   The
names  of  each  file  correspond to the volume and sequence
number of the fix,  e.g.,  V1.n  is  the  nth-fix  published
within Volume 1.  In addition to the fixes, a compressed tar
image of the patch program sources is kept (patch.tar.Z)  in
this  subdirectory  for  the  benefit  of sites which do not
already have this useful program.

     Our intent is to mimic the well-known organization  and
format  of "official" fixes to Berkeley's 4bsd release, pub-
lished via a moderated newsgroup  (comp.bugs.4bsd.ucb-fixes)
and  archived  at  UUNET.   Each  fix  to  IBM/4.3  will  be



                       July 17, 1989





                           - 2 -


published via the un-moderated newsgroup specific to the IBM
RT   (comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt),   and   archived  on  IBMSUPT  as
described in the preceding paragraph.  The new  naming  con-
vention   and  the  selection  of  patch-compatible  context
differences follows the format adopted by Berkeley in  March
1987.   An  index  of fixes will be maintained and published
regularly, and again, the Berkeley  practice  will  be  fol-
lowed.

     This change improves upon the somewhat  variable  loca-
tion  and  naming  conventions,  in  which  occasional fixes
referred to within the notes-based APAR system were not con-
tained within a notesfile but were located in the publically
readable uucp spool directory (/usr/spool/uucppublic) on the
IBMSUPT machine, (e.g., the "hammerfix").

     This change also makes consistent the format for diffs,
though  non-context diffs were predominant, the direction of
the diffs was not consistent throughout.  This lack of  con-
sistency  made  the fixes unsuited to automatic installation
or management.

     Finally, this change makes bug tracking and fix instal-
lation much easier to manage, and aids understanding of pos-
sible interdependencies of fixes.  The extensive interactive
traversal  of  notesfiles  for clues or later but apparently
unrelated notes is made unnecessary.

     No change has been introduced to the system  for  open-
ing, tracking and closure of APARs.  Some fixes may continue
to be introduced into the notesfiles, but the  authoritative
fix  will  be as described above, and each APAR closure will
contain a reference to the Volume and sequence number of the
relevant fix.

     We anticipate that the application of bug fixes will be
made simpler for IBM's customers, and tracking fix installa-
tions will be made easier for the on-site support staff, the
ACSC  support  staff, and the IBM/4.3 support programmers at
IBM Palo Alto


Sincerely,


IBM/4.3 Technical Support Staff
Palo Alto
13 July, 1989









                       July 17, 1989



Eric Brunner
uunet!ibmsupt!brunner


