Re: changelog rotation...

["Eli Zaretskii" <eliz at is dot elta dot co dot il>]

> Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 08:13:34 -0500
> From: Fernando Nasser <fnasser@redhat.com>
> 
> Lots of other things will clash as well.

But why add to those clashes?  In the long run, we agreed to eliminate
most, if not all of these problems by using subdirectories more
aggressively.

> Our established file size limit is 14, exactly what these names have.

I don't have anything against long file names, even if they are longer
than 14 characters, as long as they don't clash after truncation to
8+3.

> > I believe it is a long-term goal to eliminate such problems.  So I'd
> > suggest to start this now, and rename all ChangeLog-NNNN into
> > ChangeLog.NNNN.
> 
> We can't keep adding limitations to GDB and other free software based on
> obsolete 20 year old operating systems.

Uhm.. Unix is even older than that, I believe ;-)

Anyway, I really don't understand the attitude.  The DJGPP port is
part of the official distribution and is fully supported by the GDB
project.  Amazingly enough, the DJGPP installed base doesn't seem to
be decreasing, judging by the traffic on comp.os.msdos.djgpp (it
amazes me as well).  Thousands of teenage programmers are exposed to
Free Software through using DJGPP.  The FSF is now releasing the 2nd
edition of the "GNU Software for MS-Windows and MS-DOS" CD-ROM, which
is based equally on DJGPP and Cygwin ports (the previous editions were
all sold out); that CD-ROM includes ports of all the latest GNU stuff,
including GCC 2.95.2, Emacs 20.7 and GDB 5.0.

As long as the DJGPP port of GDB is fully supported, each file which
clashes with other files means more work for me, to resolve those
clashes, because otherwise users will not be able to build GDB
reliably.  When you add such files, you are fighting against me and
against DJGPP users, not against Microsoft.

Now, I'm fully aware that DOS and Windows are not the most important
operating systems on GNU Project's agenda, so if there are valid
technical reasons to do something that makes the maintenance of the
DJGPP port a bit harder, I'll accept that.  If some technical
considerations dictate that we use ChangeLog-NNNN names, let's talk
about those considerations.

I suggested a few alternative solutions, which I think are better, on
their own merit (split by version, not by year), and at the same time
avoid file-name clashes.  Perhaps considering those suggestions would
help us solve the problem without arguing about file names.