Date: Mon, 27 May 2019 18:13:38 +0300 From: Konstantin Belousov <kostikbel@gmail.com> To: voidanix@420blaze.it Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Disabling COMPAT_FREEBSD4/5/6/7/9 as a default kernel option Message-ID: <20190527151338.GB2748@kib.kiev.ua> In-Reply-To: <ff7bfe10b7953d066e0f087b8d422b89@420blaze.it> References: <ff7bfe10b7953d066e0f087b8d422b89@420blaze.it>
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On Mon, May 27, 2019 at 03:55:21PM +0200, voidanix@420blaze.it wrote: > Hello, > I wanted to discuss about bug 231768 a bit: it is about keeping > COMPAT_FREEBSD4/5/6/7/9 on by default in the kernel configs. What problem are you trying to solve ? > > The patch attached for the bug is for disabling these options by > default, following a few reasons which I'm going to list here: > - Keeping support for deprecated libraries isn't exactly the best we > could do to avoid security issues (if there are any) as I'm sure nobody > wants to spend that much time maintaining such stuff (it's enough to > think about misc/compat4x in the ports tree: that version of FreeBSD was > released on March 2000 and keeping 19 years old libraries around isn't > ideal) > - Devs should get track of time and realize that developing software > using unsupported libraries is NOT something that you should do This is nonsense. These options are not for developing new software. > - Only a tiny fraction of the ports need COMPAT_FREEBSD9 or older: > if the software won't compile without the legacy components (and has a > replacement of some kind), considering removal wouldn't be a bad idea And that options are usually not about ports. > - This is on by default: most users don't care or don't use binaries > that old This is I am really interesting about. How do you know ? The method you came to this conclusion should allow us to solve many other old issues, I hope. > > I don't see any practical reason to keep these options on by default, > but I do appreciate any sort of input regarding this issue.
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