Re: EPICS distribution for various platforms

[Andrew Johnson <anj@ast.cam.ac.uk>]

I thought the full "official release" had to be obtained from the Platform 
Developer (PD) in order to reduce the distribution workload on Argonne -- only the 
PDs and Beta testers should need APS access.

The official release should be distributed as just source code to the PDs, who 
then build it and construct a .tar file containing the host binaries as well 
(using gnumake built_release) which is then distributed to users. For those sites 
running multiple architectures, the PDs would have to provide a patch file 
containing any changes necesary for the particular architecture.

At the moment I am the PD for Solaris, which is fine in itself except that I can't 
even get the distribution over the network from APS -- the trans-atlantic link is 
usually just too busy.  If someone from the US then asks me for a release we get 
the same problem again in reverse, and IMHO we would be wasting a valuable 
resource crossing the pond with the full release twice.  For that reason I suspect 
I'm not the best person to act as PD for Solaris, although I'm happy to act as a 
European distribution point for the source and Solaris host.

- Andrew

  O o ._    Andrew Johnson, Royal Greenwich Observatory
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