Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 16:10:54 -0700 (MST) From: Brett Taylor <brett@peloton.physics.montana.edu> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Bill Fumerola <billf@chc-chimes.com>, Adam Turoff <aturoff@isinet.com>, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: bsd vs. linux and NT chart Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903021551210.19678-100000@peloton.physics.montana.edu> In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990302154522.03fb3730@localhost>
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Hi, On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, Brett Glass wrote: > At 03:00 PM 3/2/99 -0700, Brett Taylor wrote: > > >There's a reason we now have 3.1-STABLE. The 2.2.* branch is dead and > >eventually (probably fairly quickly) ports will stop compiling correctly > >for the 2.2 branch even if they have the ports updates correctly > >installed. > Sorry, but recent releases that are used in existing mission critical > systems are NOT "dead limbs" to be sawn off within only a couple of > months of release. I can see the Linuxoids ranting now: "See? The > FreeBSD team doesn't even provide ports for a release that's less than > 6 months old! So much for their 'great ports collection.' That's the > kind of support you'll get if you use FreeBSD." Bzzzt. The 2.2.8 ports collection will be around for a long while yet since it was the end of the 2.2.* branch. If you want to keep your ports collection stuck at 2.2.8 you're fine. BUT if you, for example, want to update some port because a new security exploit has been found or the new version has some features you just can't live without and you're running 2.2.8 still you _may_ not be able to upgrade easily because the ports track STABLE. That's it. Trying to maintain ELF and a.out versions of ports is non-trivial. Ask Satoshi or Steve Price or any number of maintainers what a pain it was to try to make both work. If you want to try to maintain a set of 2100 ports for 2.2.8 that is continuously updated with appropriate bsd.port.*.Mk files to track what's happening in STABLE then I'm sure some would appreciate it, but the ports team will not be the ones doing it. > Sad to say, they'll have a point. Conservative users who lag behind a > version or two to ensure stability are the LAST people the FreeBSD > team should want to disenfranchise. Nobody said the ports tree from 2.2.8 was going away anytime soon. Remember how you went off about the qpopper exploit? Say that happens now. Say that qpopper is/was one of the ports that was difficult to make both ELF and a.out versions build. Ports track STABLE; STABLE is ELF; new version that fixes exploit might not compile cleanly for a.out so those running a.out systems (read 2.2.8) are now on their own. We already have enough people who grab copies of updated ports and don't even know to grab the port_upgrade packages. Trying to maintain both a.out and ELF will only magnify the current problems. > The ports had BETTER keep working for AT LEAST a year after release. > To do anything less is to hurt users and damage FreeBSD's reputation > beyond repair. By your reasoning we should also be still trying to support the 2.2.6 ports tree (2.2.6 came out in Mar 98). It's long since gone and I haven't heard you complaining about that. You could at least be consistent in your rants. Brett (definitely not Glass) Taylor *********************************************************** Brett Taylor brett@peloton.physics.montana.edu * brett@daemonnews.org * * http://www.daemonnews.org/ * *********************************************************** To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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