Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 15:01:31 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com> To: "Chuck Youse" <cyouse@cybersites.com> Cc: "Mike Smith" <mike@smith.net.au>, "Robert Withrow" <witr@rwwa.com>, "Sergey" <serge69@nym.alias.net>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [Q] How stable is FreeBSD 3.X ? Message-ID: <9529.927669691@zippy.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 25 May 1999 11:14:17 EDT." <004501bea6c1$47210d80$4d7b5ccf@f8m7n1>
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Thank you, this was an excellent summary of what pissed people off and what the attitude of people reporting problems *should* be. It also cuts both ways, folks. When we find a bug that has been around since the generic BSD 4.4 Lite sources were released, do you think we send nasty, indignant mails to Kirk McKusick demanding that he fix his unreliable, crappy code? Of course not. :-) Anyone who wants help from someone else who doesn't owe it to them has to be unfailingly polite, all the way up the chain, and that's just a basic law of human interaction. - Jordan > I think that Mike's objection was to the rudeness and ignorance displayed in > the original mail. "3.1 RELEASE sucks, and you guys suck, and damn, NT is > more stable than this crap ..." is the basic essence of said message. > > Nevermind the fact that 3.1 Release is obsolete, and that 3.2 Release fixes > a great many known bugs in the previous 3.x releases. Next time I get on > the soapbox to bitch about Microsoft products, I suppose I'll point out the > shortcomings of NT 3.51, or 4.0 minus any service packs. That seems fair > enough if we play the game that way. > > The nature of open-source software is dual; sure, you get a product for > free, and generally it's of good quality. FreeBSD releases have been of > very good quality over the years -- and considering the major architectural > changes that took place between 2.x and 3.x, I'm amazed that 3.2 is as > stable as it is. The flip side, however, is that sometimes there are > problems, and there's no guarantee that _your_ problems will be given > priority. Quite frankly, if you're not involved in the development process, > there's no reason to give your problems priority, either. > > People often lose sight of the fact that this work, FreeBSD, is not > something that they are entitled to. We owe the CSRG and the FreeBSD core > team (and, to a lesser extent the NetBSD and OpenBSD teams) nothing but our > deepest gratitude for sharing the product of their hundreds of thousands of > hours of work with us. If something doesn't work right all the time, then > for heaven's sake, let them know, but don't look a gift horse in the mouth. > > Chuck Youse > Director of Systems > cyouse@cybersites.com > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Withrow <witr@rwwa.com> > To: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> > Cc: Sergey <serge69@nym.alias.net>; freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG > <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG> > Date: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 8:01 AM > Subject: Re: [Q] How stable is FreeBSD 3.X ? > > > > > >mike@smith.net.au said: > >:- We depend on our users to tell us about problems on the -stable branch > >:- before it's rolled into a release, not afterwards. If you're not > >:- willing to take part in this process, your complaints are likely to > >:- be ignored at the very least. > > > >Do I read this correctly as a policy statement that problem reports > >for -RELEASE are discouraged and ignored? Seems like a good way > >to ensure the non-fixing of bugs. > > > >An equally good way to ensure the non-fixing of bugs is to demand, > >for every bug report, that the reporter upgrade to some other version > >of the OS, or suffer the problem report being ignored and discarded. > >And this seems to be the common practice. > > > >It is probably just my naivety (I've only been doing this for 30 years) > >but it seems to me a better approach would be to welcome and encourage > >bug reports against -RELEASE. And, should it be the case that the problem > >is fixed in -STABLE or -CURRENT, cheerfully inform the reporter of that > >fact, leaving it up to the reporter to decide if upgrading makes sense. > >Assuming that fixing the bugs is the goal. > > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Robert Withrow, R.W. Withrow Associates, Swampscott MA, witr@rwwa.COM > > > > > > > > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > >with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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