Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:55:10 -0500 From: Brian Fundakowski Feldman <green@FreeBSD.org> To: Paul Richards <paul@originative.co.uk> Cc: "M. Warner Losh" <imp@bsdimp.com> Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/compat/linux linux_socket.c Message-ID: <20050310165510.GE993@green.homeunix.org> In-Reply-To: <20050310161607.GO98930@myrddin.originative.co.uk> References: <422E407B.4080507@portaone.com> <86k6oht386.fsf@xps.des.no> <422F087F.9030906@portaone.com> <20050309.085035.129356491.imp@bsdimp.com> <422F6703.70409@portaone.com> <20050310161607.GO98930@myrddin.originative.co.uk>
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On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 04:16:08PM +0000, Paul Richards wrote: > On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 11:13:39PM +0200, Maxim Sobolev wrote: > > M. Warner Losh wrote: > > >In message: <422F087F.9030906@portaone.com> > > > Maxim Sobolev <sobomax@portaone.com> writes: > > >: and need this tool to upgrade otherwise perfectly working system(s). > > > > > >As a veteran of ABI wars, I think that you have an unrealistic > > >expectations about what can be done. While an interesting goal, too > > >many of the developers are hard wired to not even think about such > > >considerations to make it successful. We have a hard enough time > > >making backward compatibility work, there's no hope for 'forward' > > >compatability. > > > > As a junior of ABI wars I think I have a realistic expectation about > > what can be done. Yes, many developers don't care about `backward' > > compatibility, let alone `forward' compatibility, but in fact both are > > really necessary in we want to position FreeBSD as a sound design. > > >From a commercial standpoint, forwards compatibility is I think > actually more important. When you release a commercial product > you're actually more concerned about it working on already existing > systems. > > Imagine something like Photoshop being written on the most recent > version of Mac OS X and finding that compatibility only worked > forward. That would mean that most users out there would have to > upgrade their OS in order to use the most recent version of Photoshop! > What's most important commercially is that you can use the most up > to date development environment to target the largest possible > installed user base. It matters a lot less if you have to support > patches for newer systems since that's a much smaller user base to > support and the onward development of your own product tends to > keep pace with future platform changes. > > A "stable" ABI means it doesn't change, not that it changes in a > backwards compatible manner. We should be able to enhance future > versions of a branch without creating these ABI incompatibilities > by supporting the existing interfaces until a future major release > removes them. > > Better yet, lets stop "developing" our stable branches and focus > on stabilising them and getter more rapid development done in our > -current branch. There was a rash of MFCs for the next stable release > which were nothing more than a feature push and were of dubious > value in helping stability. How is this even a problem? The company targets 5.3-RELEASE, period, for all of 5.x. They do not need to upgrade their build computer to anything past RELENG_5_3 even in the face of security issues. -- Brian Fundakowski Feldman \'[ FreeBSD ]''''''''''\ <> green@FreeBSD.org \ The Power to Serve! \ Opinions expressed are my own. \,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,\
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