Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 16:35:52 -0800 From: Darryl Okahata <darrylo@sr.hp.com> To: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk> Cc: Kris Kennaway <kris@hub.freebsd.org>, Luoqi Chen <luoqi@watermarkgroup.com>, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: HEADSUP: wd driver will be retired! Message-ID: <199912110035.QAA13911@mina.sr.hp.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 11 Dec 1999 00:55:15 %2B0100." <7881.944870115@critter.freebsd.dk>
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Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk> wrote:
> Once we have established that the new driver doesn't leave a large
> number of people stranded it will be killed for good.
I think this is a key issue, if not *THE* key issue.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but PHK and others are basically
saying:
1. If we allow the old drivers to exist, many people will not use the
new drivers, and the new drivers will get little testing.
2. We, therefore, need to force people to use the new drivers by getting
rid of the old ones.
The concerns that other people have are:
1. "I'm worried about ATA. It was just called ``alpha-quality'' a few
days ago, and now you want to promote it to something past
``beta-quality'', where, during a typical beta-test, both old and new
drivers coexist. I'm worried about the stability of the ATA
drivers."
The timing is extremely unfortunate. Many people would have much
fewer concerns (or "whining", as has been poorly said) if there were
a "testing period" longer than a few days (where the ATA drivers are
the default, but the old wd drivers still existed).
2. Functionality is currently missing.
I hope I'm wrong, but the attitude seems to be: "If the ATA drivers
are missing functionality, either fix it yourself or send hardware to
the developers. If you can't fix it, you shouldn't be running
-current".
Well, this is fine to say, but I'd like to point out:
* Many -current users have newer hardware, and tend to have fewer
hardware that may not be supported by the new ATA drivers. Many
-current users can afford to buy newer hardware (or do so because
of business/consulting reasons).
* I believe that many users of -release or -stable (who are not
running -current and are not reading -current) tend to use older
hardware -- the kind that may not be supported by the ATA drivers.
The problem here is that we are potentially preventing users of
older hardware from running 4.0-release/-stable when it comes out,
because no one running -current has an example of their older
hardware, and we removed the old drivers which may have worked.
In other words, it's unclear as to whether or not the new driver
will leave any significant number of people stranded, even if all
-current developers test the h*ll out of ATA.
--
Darryl Okahata
darrylo@sr.hp.com
DISCLAIMER: this message is the author's personal opinion and does not
constitute the support, opinion, or policy of Agilent Technologies, or
of the little green men that have been following him all day.
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