Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:21:21 +0100 From: Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.org> To: Dominic Fandrey <kamikaze@bsdforen.de> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's problems as seen by the BSDForen.de community Message-ID: <47875131.4040802@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <478560AE.2000102@FreeBSD.org> References: <478556AD.6090400@bsdforen.de> <478560AE.2000102@FreeBSD.org>
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Kris Kennaway wrote: > Dominic Fandrey wrote: >> Hello, >> >> I'm writing this mail on behalf of the largest German BSD community >> (http://bsdforen.de/). Some of our most respected and experienced >> community >> members have stopped using FreeBSD entirely, especially professional >> users >> have taken this step. >> >> Many of us are very attached to FreeBSD and those of us who turn our >> backs to >> the system consider this a personal loss. >> >> This mail is the result of a forum thread that consists of more than >> 200 posts >> (still growing) that started in October 2007 >> (http://www.bsdforen.de/showthread.php?t=19426). It is meant to sum up >> the >> causes of this development, the reasons we see for this and what we think >> might be promising ways to try solve these problems; at least in the >> areas we >> were able to achieve consent. >> >> The first problem is the unbearable performance many AMD users are >> suffering >> for several chipset and CPU generations. Even minimal I/O load on a >> hard disk >> suffices to lock up whole systems. Posts on the mailinglists current and >> stable have often been answered with denial or have simply been >> ignored. Only >> on very rare occasions (if at all) have these problems been taken >> seriously. >> >> The second big problem is the handling of regressions. PRs remain >> unanswered >> or the reporters are told that the regressions they report do not >> exist. Some >> of our members have even suffered the experience that they developed a >> patch, >> but it simply was ignored or turned down for the reason that it was a >> "Linux >> solution". Especially frustrating for those among us who have never >> looked at >> Linux code. >> >> These problems seem to be exceptions, but they are very persistent >> exceptions. >> Problems concerning code that is currently being worked on are shown >> much >> attention, feedback and patches are happily taken and the developers >> supply >> the problem reporter with steps to take in order to track down these >> problems. >> >> The problem seems, in our opinion, to reside with unmaintained code. >> It seems >> that nobody wants to take responsibility for code that has been >> untouched for >> a longer period of time. This is quite understandable, considering that >> developers already have projects they're working on and probably >> consider much >> more important, but that does not make it less of a problem. >> >> What we think might be a solution to the regression problem, would be the >> establishing of a Regressions Team, similar to other teams like the >> Security >> Team. The sole purpose of this team would be to take care of >> regressions that >> concern unmaintained code. >> >> To solve the performance problems it appears to us, that a guide to >> tracking >> performance problems or a performance test suite is required. This would >> hopefully allow us to write PRs and emails that would be taken more >> seriously. >> >> - Dominic Fandrey on behalf of BSDForen.de community > > Thanks for the feedback. It is hard to respond to the reports of poor > performance or other problems without specific information though. FYI this was not a dismissal, it was an invitation for you to follow up with the specific problems your members have seen so we can try to evaluate them. Kris
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