Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 11:59:21 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM> To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Cc: gpalmer@FreeBSD.org, jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com, j@uriah.heep.sax.de, roberto@keltia.freenix.fr, current@FreeBSD.org, scrappy@ki.net Subject: Re: /var/mail (was: re: Help, permission problems...) Message-ID: <MailManager.846791961.5917.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> In-Reply-To: <199610311829.LAA25654@phaeton.artisoft.com>
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On Thu, 31 Oct 1996 11:29:55 -0700 (MST), Terry Lambert wrote: > It's possible to test the failure case during > config by compiling up a small test program. How do you test the failure case during config for a mailbox accessed in the future? Please explain how config will know what sort of systems you will access over NFS in the future. The majority of UNIX systems in the world do not use system call locking. They use lock files. Some BSD variants once used system call locking, but gave up because of the need to support NFS. Please explain how FreeBSD, perhaps the only system in the world that still uses system call locking, is going to get the world to convert. Once again, this issue is not about whether or not my code supports system call locking. It does. Already. And it has for many years. This issue is about whether or not my code should try to use lock files too, and what should happen if it can't. There are only two choices: 1) give a warning message, which is annoying if you are a FreeBSD system, everything is on the FreeBSD system, and you know that it is safe not to bother with lock files. 2) don't give a warning message, which on 99% of the systems in the world means that locking has failed for real and the user is vulnerable to data corruption. 99% is conservative. FreeBSD is much less than 1% of the UNIX market. Give me one good reason why I should let 1% of the market tell me that I should do something that puts 99% of the market at risk. Give me one good reason why, given that you've been told how to take the risk by building it to quell the warning, you are still bothering me.
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