8 ms·

I read somewhere that postfix is used by around 30% of the internets to send mail. That's really concerning because we have no history for the code, just a code

I read somewhere that postfix is used by around 30% of the internets to send mail. That's really concerning because we have no history for the code, just a code drop. Given the amount of criticism for projects like android (which does have a public git repo but is also a code drop), I posted this here as I was wondering what people thought of such projects. These days I think of free software to have a public version control as a given. So coming across this was a shocker for me. I think Wietse is free to do whatever he wants but it's just sad that we have to depend on this software so much :(

toast0 12y ago
There's plenty of history: ftp://ftp.reverse.net/pub/postfix/official/ Additionally, the history is mirrored on all the continents except Australia, http://www.postfix.org/download.html http://www.postfix.org/download.html Sure, there's no commit history for every change, but there's release notes for every version. What is the use case for knowing what intermediate things may have been available to some small group prior to release?
- ef4 12y ago
  > What is the use case for knowing what intermediate things may have been available to some small group prior to release? It's a use case that actually comes up a lot. "This line looks funny, why does it do that?" Go read the commit log and see why it was last touched. I find and fix bugs in open source things I depend on all the time using this method. Or just as importantly, I realize my own understanding was mistaken and the author had a good reason for what they did, so I don't go asking stupid questions on a mailing list.
jkrems 12y ago
Given small releases, patches available, and a very detailed history file - what's the problem? It's enormously easy to construct a repository in your favorite VCS from that information. There's more than one way to keep a detailed history and just because they only have tarball releases doesn't mean it's a "code dump". Not to say that their process is perfect and I'd chose the same process. But pretending like their process is highly problematic and we should be concerned for the future of the web because you can't run `git log` the moment you have the code seems a little over-dramatic.

toast0 12y ago

There's plenty of history: ftp://ftp.reverse.net/pub/postfix/official/ Additionally, the history is mirrored on all the continents except Australia, http://www.postfix.org/download.html http://www.postfix.org/download.html Sure, there's no commit history for every change, but there's release notes for every version. What is the use case for knowing what intermediate things may have been available to some small group prior to release?

ef4 12y ago
> What is the use case for knowing what intermediate things may have been available to some small group prior to release? It's a use case that actually comes up a lot. "This line looks funny, why does it do that?" Go read the commit log and see why it was last touched. I find and fix bugs in open source things I depend on all the time using this method. Or just as importantly, I realize my own understanding was mistaken and the author had a good reason for what they did, so I don't go asking stupid questions on a mailing list.

jkrems 12y ago

Given small releases, patches available, and a very detailed history file - what's the problem? It's enormously easy to construct a repository in your favorite VCS from that information. There's more than one way to keep a detailed history and just because they only have tarball releases doesn't mean it's a "code dump". Not to say that their process is perfect and I'd chose the same process. But pretending like their process is highly problematic and we should be concerned for the future of the web because you can't run `git log` the moment you have the code seems a little over-dramatic.