Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 11:48:39 +0200 From: Guido Falsi <mad@madpilot.net> To: Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists@tx.rr.com>, "A.J. 'Fonz' van Werven" <freebsd@skysmurf.nl> Cc: FreeBSD Ports <freebsd-ports@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Who was the mental genius Message-ID: <53918E77.2010402@madpilot.net> 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 06/06/14 04:32, 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?
>
No, in fact I'm stating the opposite, it was removed on purpose, BUT
care was taken to remove it once all releases without the needed code
were become unsupported, so no promise was broken.
>> 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.
There are two arguments you make. In my opinion one is not acceptable
the other is quite acceptable:
you ask for advertisement before breaking things, I agree this is a
reasonable request. Discussion has been already started by others in
this thread about the best way to convey the information.
My opinion on this is that nagging people with automatic messages isn't
really a good idea, better have a well known place where to look and
people can look there, but I see that many people think the opposite,
this is just me though. If the "nag message" way is taken I only suggest
that a knob to disable such nagging is also made available.
You seem also to ask for not breaking things in unsupported releases,
this is not a reasonable request.
Which releases are supported or not is well known, documented and
declared in advance at release time. Things WILL anyway break
unexpectedly in unsupported releases, because changes in the supported
part of the tree are simply not tested in unsupported ones (that's part
of the definition of supported vs unsupported...)
--
Guido Falsi <mad@madpilot.net>
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