Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD ?

[Dave Hayes]

Adam Strohl <adams-freebsd at ateamsystems.com> writes:
> There in lies the question -- why do you need to compile a port which 
> was just released?   Is it a security thing or is it "I want the latest" 
> ?  I'm just curious (and totally uninterested in how this ranks in your 
> "worse question" list).

If I weren't honorable, I'd consider this question a troll. It's so far
afield from my daily reality...well I'm going to take this at face
value, because maybe -I've- got something wrong. ;)

Let's just consider Firefox, which has a rather aggressive release
schedule (once a month). 

 $ pkg_info -r firefox-10.0.3,1 | grep Dependency | wc -l
   175

Look at some of these dependencies:

 $ pkg_info -r firefox-10.0.3,1 | grep Dependency | sort
  ...
  Dependency: cairo-1.10.2_3,1
  ...
  Dependency: gtk-2.24.6
  ...
  Dependency: libgnome-2.32.0
  ...
  Dependency: perl-threaded-5.14.2_2
  ...
  Dependency: python27-2.7.2_4

Basically, everytime you want to upgrade firefox to 'stay current', you
are upgrading a fair number of heavyweight packages. The chances that
these will change month to month are high. (In the interests of brevity
I will leave the verification of this to interested parties). Any of the
ports listed above can have dependencies and consequences that reach
very far into your workflow. 

If you do not upgrade them, you risk that firefox breaks in unknown
ways. This is a rock and a hard place...do you upgrade everything from
scratch (safest, but the 48 hour downtime is not unreasonable) or do you
try to just replace that one port (risky, but you'll likely be up in an
hour)? 

For firefox, it might very well be a security thing that causes the
upgrade. Note well that I am not running 12 (is it at 12 now? 13? urgh.) 
because I'm in development and I do not want to touch certain other
ports. 

Do I have this wrong? Anyone see a problem with this picture?
What can we do to "just upgrade" in a safe fashion when we want to? 
-- 
Dave Hayes - Consultant - Altadena CA, USA - dave at jetcafe.org 
>>> The opinions expressed above are entirely my own <<<

The treasure house within you contains everything, and you
are free to use it. You don't need to seek outside.