Re: cvs commit: projects/validate - Imported sources

On Wed, Dec 31, 2003 at 08:59:17PM +1100, Peter Jeremy wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 31, 2003 at 01:00:49AM -0800, Mike Makonnen wrote:
> >mtm         2003/12/31 01:00:49 PST
> >
> >  FreeBSD projects repository
> >
> >  projects/validate - Imported sources
> >  Update of /home/projcvs/projects/validate
> >  In directory repoman.freebsd.org:/tmp/cvs-serv23735
> >  
> >  Log Message:
> >  Initial import of the Linux Test Project (http://ltp.sourceforge.net).
> 
> Out of interest, what is the rationale behind this?  I agree that a
> POSIX-style test suite would be very useful but I don't see the need
> for this to be part of the FreeBSD CVS repository, rather than a port.

When a project grows beyond a certain size, it is necessary to have some
sort of objective benchmark by which to measure forward progress. It is
doubly important for a high visibility project such as FreeBSD. Furthermore,
any such undertaking can't be a port because a port is very much independent
of the OS version.  A 5-CURRENT user and a 4.8-RELEASE user can,
for the most part, both use the same port. Any modifications to make the port 
work with one or the other version is mostly trivial. That's not the case
with a test suite. By its nature it cannot be trivially reconfigured to
work with one or another release. For example, imagine that between 5.2-RELEASE
and 5.3-RELEASE one new test was added and a pre-existing test was modified
because of an interface change in 5.3-RELEASE. In the case of a port there are
two choices: 1) Some sort of configuration mechanism to build and run the
right tests 2) Keep different versions of the port available at all times.
While either of these options might be trivial for this one case, there are
going to be many such cases as we move into the future, and then it's going
to be non-trivial to keep things sane. On the other hand tagging the testsuite
in concert with the source tree is much simpler. Any user can run a version of
the test suite that will work with his/her system *and* take advantage of any
new tests that are MFCed from later releases.

Cheers.
-- 
Mike Makonnen  | GPG-KEY: http://www.identd.net/~mtm/mtm.asc
[email protected] | Fingerprint: 00E8 61BC 0D75 7FFB E4D3  6BF1 B239 D010 3215 D418
[email protected]| FreeBSD - Unleash the Daemon !
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