From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 8 15:06:25 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C7FC310656A7 for ; Wed, 8 Sep 2010 15:06:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from erikt@midgard.homeip.net) Received: from ch-smtp03.sth.basefarm.net (ch-smtp03.sth.basefarm.net [80.76.149.214]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 532F58FC08 for ; Wed, 8 Sep 2010 15:06:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from c83-255-61-120.bredband.comhem.se ([83.255.61.120]:57544 helo=falcon.midgard.homeip.net) by ch-smtp03.sth.basefarm.net with esmtp (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1OtME8-0001N2-Cc for stable@freebsd.org; Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:06:23 +0200 Received: (qmail 7129 invoked from network); 8 Sep 2010 17:06:13 +0200 Received: from owl.midgard.homeip.net (10.1.5.7) by falcon.midgard.homeip.net with ESMTP; 8 Sep 2010 17:06:13 +0200 Received: (qmail 10567 invoked by uid 1001); 8 Sep 2010 17:06:13 +0200 Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2010 17:06:13 +0200 From: Erik Trulsson To: Mark Blackman Message-ID: <20100908150613.GA10557@owl.midgard.homeip.net> References: <201009011653.o81Grkm4056064@fire.js.berklix.net> <201009080842.28495.jhb@freebsd.org> <201009081021.48077.jhb@freebsd.org> <4C879E2F.6000107@exonetric.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4C879E2F.6000107@exonetric.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) X-Originating-IP: 83.255.61.120 X-Scan-Result: No virus found in message 1OtME8-0001N2-Cc. X-Scan-Signature: ch-smtp03.sth.basefarm.net 1OtME8-0001N2-Cc 6cafca0c5f5427ee8e86203aa8f591f7 Cc: stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Policy for removing working code X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:06:25 -0000 On Wed, Sep 08, 2010 at 03:31:11PM +0100, Mark Blackman wrote: > John Baldwin wrote: > > [ Trimming cc's a bit ] > > > > On Wednesday, September 08, 2010 10:01:22 am Vadim Goncharov wrote: > > >> Big thanks for your work, but unfortunately, the problem itself is not ISDN or > >> network stack, it is deeper. It is the policy or may be style of thought, > >> discourse. Something like: > >> progress dictates we need fix/maintainership to feature X > >> & we have no resources to maintain feature X > >> -> we announce theis need, but only to _limited_ audience, not wide circles > >> -> nobody responds > >> -> the X code is removed > >> AND we think this logic chain is correct, thought we did not things this way > >> even 5 years ago. > > > > Actually, things have worked this way far longer than 5 years ago. For > > example, we lost a few SCSI HBA drivers during the transition to CAM (e.g. > > wds(4) was not present in 4.x but was eventually CAM-ified and reappeared > > in 5.0). I suspect there was far less notice given for those drivers > > than for ISDN (multiple notices to arch@ and current@ spread out across > > many months). > > On top of which, I'd say that the general philosopy is always that > you stick with the release that works for you. Surely the people who > "need" those ISDN drivers, simply stay with the release that works for > them. If they need new features as well as ISDN, they do a cost-benefit > analysis on writing drivers to fit the new framework. Only problem with that is that eventually those old releases stop receiving security fixes at which point it might become downright dangerous to continue using the old release. I think that is exactly the situation now which started this discussion - the last release supporting ISDN was 6.4, which is to be EOL soon. -- Erik Trulsson ertr1013@student.uu.se