From owner-freebsd-net Fri Nov 30 12:55: 5 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from elvis.mu.org (elvis.mu.org [216.33.66.196]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F1B7637B41C for ; Fri, 30 Nov 2001 12:55:00 -0800 (PST) Received: by elvis.mu.org (Postfix, from userid 1192) id 7311A81D06; Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:54:55 -0600 (CST) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:54:55 -0600 From: Alfred Perlstein To: Jonathan Lemon Cc: Jordan Hubbard , Alex Rousskov , freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: funding TCP stack rewrite Message-ID: <20011130145455.K46769@elvis.mu.org> References: <2047.1007150960@winston.freebsd.org> <20011130143707.E75389@prism.flugsvamp.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20011130143707.E75389@prism.flugsvamp.com>; from jlemon@flugsvamp.com on Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 02:37:07PM -0600 Sender: owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org * Jonathan Lemon [011130 14:40] wrote: > On Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 12:09:20PM -0800, Jordan Hubbard wrote: > > > Will the dedicated work of the said guru get a high priority as far as > > > review and commit steps are concerned? A public semi-formal commitment > > > or encouragement from FreeBSD core group may be in order to raise > > > support from the community. Otherwise, folks may worry that these big > > > changes, once implemented, will get stuck in the commit queue forever. > > > > I think it's an absolutely terrible idea, frankly. > > [ sweeping generalizations omitted ] > > An open ended request of "rewrite the stack!" is certainly bound to > fail. However, a carefully targeted one to add specific, well-defined > features within a fixed timeline is quite feasible, depending on the > the engineers involved. I don't think a rewrite is ever going to be much of a good idea, a restructuring might, meaning that fixing up all the layering and making it more flat like Van Jacobson suggested (and Linux implemented in one of their stack of the year projects) might gain us performance. A rewrite is only necessary when you can't solve a particular semantic or performance problem without a major kludge. Right now we don't have any of those problems and a rewrite would mearly throw away years apon years of testing along with making our implementation incompatible with the texts out there which would raise the bar for anyone attempting to base their code on ours. I agree that a rewrite without a clearly stated goal is almost always just a euphamism for "i didn't like the variable names and indenting of the old system" or "i want my name on the top of each file in the sys/netinet directory". Lastly, I wish we just drop it until we come up with a solid reason, all this is doing is second guessing stuff that has worked for years. This code has existed in mostly working order for half of my lifetime I really don't feel much anyone has the skills necessary to duplicate the equivelant of several hundered man years of developement in just a couple of months no matter how highly they think of themselves. In summary, I completely agree with Jonathan and all the others opposing such a motion. Your time would be much better spent analyzing the current issues and seeking optimizations to completment the current design. -- -Alfred Perlstein [alfred@freebsd.org] 'Instead of asking why a piece of software is using "1970s technology," start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.' http://www.morons.org/rants/gpl-harmful.php3 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-net" in the body of the message