I just *had* to comment.

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu]

On Wed, Jun 02, 2004 at 11:38:50AM -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
> dsr at tao.merseine.nu writes:
> 
> >> However a
> >> registry isn't sufficient, either.  Think distributed systems (i.e.,
> >> I've got 1000 machines and the software is installed on a central file
> >> server (not on each machine) and run out of the network file system).
> >
> > In which case you use rsync on /etc/dotfiles from the
> > appropriate central repository branch (webservers get theirs
> >>From repository/webservers/etc/dotfiles, login machines from
> > repository/logins/etc/dotfiles, etc.).
> 
> This is a non-starter.  There is no "global registry" available.
> Applications come and go, and each app potentially has its own set of
> maintainers.  The global defaults need to live with the app, wherever
> on the net the app happens to live, not in some central site or
> filesystem location.

We are clearly talking about completely different things.

I am talking about a production environment in which there are n
classes of machines, and a member of a class should be
essentially identical to any other member of that class. 

What are you talking about?

-dsr-