freebsd-update(8) under sparc64? Why is it not available?

[Royce Williams]

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 5:53 PM, Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 09, 2010 at 01:12:57AM -0400, Miles Nordin wrote:
>> good thinking, good thinking.
>
> I have to admit even on the second reading of your email, I can't make
> sense of it.

It's extended sarcasm.

Miles' point appears to be that some end users do not have the
resources necessary to set up a sufficiently beefy sparc64 build
system to respond quickly to security announcements.

But it could have been said in a more constructive manner.

For me, not having binary updates for sparc64 improves security -- but
not in the way that Colin describes.  I would love to run FreeBSD on
my Ultra 30, but knowing how long it will take to build world in
response to a security issue has turned it into a very secure
paperweight under my desk. :-)

In my opinion, people who would run sparc64 on slow hardware facing
the public Internet without being willing and able to disconnect it
when something serious was announced are already doing other foolish
things ... and I'd rather not be punished for their bad behavior. :-)

I'd chip in $100 to fund either A) tracking down the remaining
cross-build issues, or B) adding I/O or CPU power to an existing build
setup.

Finally, to repeat a point that I made in the last big thread on this topic [1]:

"It may be that there's no way to break that 1-hour barrier.  Maybe I
can convince Colin that, until full cross-compiling is available, we
sparc64 folks would settle for slightly-delayed binary security
updates (instead of never getting them at all).  It's the very fact
that we're running on slower hardware that makes freebsd-update so
attractive."

Royce

1. http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-sparc64/2007-February/004622.html
- Feb 2007