Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 20:08:35 -0700 From: Alfred Perlstein <alfred@freebsd.org> To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Who was the mental genius Message-ID: <539130B3.9030604@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <6CEF0183772C97582B196466@Pauls-MacBook-Pro.local> References: <C38D07C36CF649C84A3B9362@localhost> <20140605211831.GA90310@spectrum.skysmurf.nl> <D2EE1900E54F5DC324E503D3@localhost> <5390E62E.6090807@madpilot.net> <6CEF0183772C97582B196466@Pauls-MacBook-Pro.local>
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On 6/5/14, 7:32 PM, Paul Schmehl wrote:
> --On June 5, 2014 at 11:50:38 PM +0200 Guido Falsi <mad@madpilot.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On 06/05/14 23:43, Paul Schmehl wrote:
>>> --On June 5, 2014 at 11:18:31 PM +0200 "A.J. 'Fonz' van Werven"
>>> <freebsd@skysmurf.nl> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Paul Schmehl wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> That decided it was a good idea to completely break ports to force
>>>>> people to upgrade? You couldn't come up with a warning system
>>>>> instead
>>>>> of outright breaking ports? The idiots are apparently running the
>>>>> asylum. {{sigh}}
>>>>
>>>> It might help to know exactly what you're talking about... What is it
>>>> that
>>>> broke?
>>>>
>>>
>>> The change to make that causes this when you run pkg commands or try to
>>> build ports:
>>>
>>> Unknown modifier 't'
>>>
>>> It was done deliberately to break ports so that people would be forced
>>> to upgrade to a supported version.
>>>
>>> <https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=46291>;
>>
>> No it was not done "deliberately"
>>
>> Newer freebsd version moved to a newer make utility, and support for the
>> old one has been dropped after support for all old releases containing
>> it was ceased.
>>
>
> So they dropped the support accidentally? Is this really the time to
> argue semantics?
>
>> Which releases are supported and for how long is well known, and
>> published in here when a new release is published:
>>
>> http://www.freebsd.org/security/security.html#sup
>>
>> The updates are free, as in "no payment needed". What's keeping you from
>> performing a binary update of the base system every year or so?
>>
>
> I have two hosts on the internet for which the backup system failed.
> I didn't catch it right away, so now I'm several days behind on
> backups. I need to install a new system, but it requires ports I
> don't yet have installed. So now I have two options; upgrade with my
> fingers crossed and hope it works or scramble to find some way to
> backup before I upgrade just in case the upgrade fails.
>
>> Running such an old system as any of the unsupported releases is also
>> most probably exposing you to security vulnerabilities.
>>
>
> First of all, 8.3 is not an old system. Secondly, you used to be able
> to run "old" systems for a long time after support was dropped without
> encountering issues like this. Finally, I'm a port maintainer of a
> fair number of ports, so FreeBSD isn't free for me. I put a lot of
> time into it.
>
> When such a drastic change is made, it should be well advertised in
> advance (think the pkgng announcement you get every time you install a
> port) and not implemented in such a disruptive manner. It's clear from
> the forum announcement that I linked to that I was not the only one
> caught by surprise and that it didn't even work on supported versions
> when the change was first implemented.
>
>> Sometimes to change things you need to break compatibility, the project
>> did wait till it was coherent with what was promised before doing this.
>>
>
> What you call "the project" is made up of people. SOMEONE should be
> thinking through the impact on end users and helping to plan such
> major transitions in a way that's least disruptive IF you want the
> system to remain viable.
>
> Perhaps this is part of the reason adoption of FreeBSD has dropped so
> dramatically over the years. I'm retiring in 18 months. When I
> leave, the last FreeBSD system goes with me. No one is even
> interested in learning it any more. FreeBSD used to rule the web.
> Now it's Linux. There's a lesson in there for those that are
> listening, but apparently "the project" is not. Which is sad, because
> FreeBSD, IMNSHO, is a very good OS.
>
> There's no need to respond to this. I'm just venting. And clearly my
> opinion doesn't matter anyway.
I think your opinion matters.
I agree I would be rudely surprised by such a breakage myself. That
said we need to find a way to desupport things eventually.
Any ideas on what should have been done that can be done in a short
amount of code as possible? Perhaps there's some way to determine
between the old and new makes and just add some kind of target like:
# psuedo make(1) code:
.ifndef THIS_IS_NEW_MAKE
.BEGIN:
echo your system is running an unsupported version of FreeBSD the
last version to support this is r232423
echo please run "svn update -r232423" to get a working ports tree as
of that date or upgrade to a more recent
echo freebsd release using freebsd-update [[insert link to
freebsd-update]]
exit 1
.endif
-Alfred
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