Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 17:02:02 -0700 (MST) From: "Jeffrey D. Wheelhouse" <jdw@wwwi.com> To: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com>, "Jeffrey D. Wheelhouse" <jdw@wwwi.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: IP bugs in FreeBSD 2.1.5 Message-ID: <199610160002.RAA28927@wwwi.com>
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At 03:34 PM 10/15/96 -0700, Julian Elischer wrote: >However the fact remains that many of >us regard freeBSD as having MAJOR FLAWS >(not neccesarily being the same as reliability problems) >and feel that we MUST move forward to correct those. >These things however bring instability, and I for one am VERY GRATEFUL >for people such as yourself who, for applications which don't >require new features, have used the -stable release. I don't disagree with what you're saying at all. But take a look at some of the other stuff... "small" and not-so-small. First, look at my CD-R. -current has had support for the HP CD-R for quite some time now (like almost a year) but no support in -stable. I ask on the list if someone knows any way to make it work on -stable and the only response I get besides a couple of "I'd like to know this too"s is "just upgrade to current." The latest (two) current SNAP(s) feature protection against the recently "discoved" SYN attack. Forgive me if I missed a patch to -stable but my "applications which don't require new features" (e.g. my production web server) suddenly do, but trading out for the -current roller coaster is clearly not the answer. As for the kind of bugs Brian was talking about, they are relatively minor, and in fact most of them have been fixed, but when it boils down to "these bugs are fixed, just not for you" I frown. Dynamic configuration I'm prepared to wait a couple of years for. Threading I want so bad it hurts but it's no easy thing (and of limited merit without SMP) but these things are complicated and take time, so I'll wait until they're stable/ready. Ideally, the big things shouldn't hold up every other patch, serious bug fix, security hole, and new feature that comes along in the meantime, but that is exactly what is happening. >(I also checked his examples on a 2.2 box when I could you will notice.) See above about "these bugs are fixed, just not for you." I'm not faulting you for asking him if he also happened to test it out on -current. If I am reporting a bug in 2.1.5, though, "I checked this on 2.2 and it's just dandy" brings me no closer to a solution. >You might consider it selfish, but my interest right now is in -current. Hey, I am in no position to consider anyone who contributes directly to the FreeBSD project selfish. I'm certainly not saying that you, Julian Elischer, are hereby commanded by God to lay aside thy current project and fix my bugs. I know I'm too busy to track this sort of thing down and fix it myself, so it is no leap to see that you are too. But they are a lot of talented people on this list, and many of them DO have some time... heck people frequently write to one or another list and say "what can I do?". Here's something for them to do. I wish it was something I had time and resources for myself, because it would be a great way to learn about the workings of FreeBSD. >ok I can see that might be true. >But it was not what I wanted to say.. >remember I want you to be able to get to the cupcake >asap and I'm working hard to make that possible.. >If I spend too much time working on 2.1.5 >tehn that delays the moment that I can give you >the cupcake.. >alternatively, you can always look in the -current sources and >check out all the edits to see what changed. I wasn't trying to say >that you MUST however.. but I have my own perspective on this.. See above. Your livelihood depends (directly or indirectly) on hacking FreeBSD. Lucky guy. As fun as it would be, mine doesn't, not anymore than it depends on hacking Solaris, WinNT, BSDI, Irix, or any of the other OSs sitting under my desk right now. Out of all of the choices (I have to have one of pretty much everything for compatibility testing) for what to run my internal stuff on, I choose to use FreeBSD-stable because it's among the very best, and certainly the most cost effective in terms of software (being free) and hardware (my FreeBSD hardware nickel goes a whole lot farther than with any other OS). That's a good thing. But just because I don't have the time to go improve it myself doesn't mean I can't offer suggestions about how it might be improved. Later, Jeff
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