Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 05:51:05 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick <koitsu@FreeBSD.org> To: "Bruce M. Simpson" <bms@FreeBSD.org> Cc: Jo Rhett <jrhett@netconsonance.com>, FreeBSD Stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: CLARITY re: challenge: end of life for 6.2 is premature with buggy 6.3 Message-ID: <20080605125105.GA79727@eos.sc1.parodius.com> In-Reply-To: <4847D5F8.80605@FreeBSD.org> References: <9B7FE91B-9C2E-4732-866C-930AC6022A40@netconsonance.com> <4846E637.9080101@samsco.org> <BFF61274-C192-4361-9DEB-93DED2E02CA7@netconsonance.com> <48472DB6.5030909@samsco.org> <6010676B-91B0-4AF8-ACF8-039A59B29331@netconsonance.com> <484736E0.6090004@samsco.org> <C69AC20A-225C-478D-B0C8-B2F018B555C6@netconsonance.com> <4847D5F8.80605@FreeBSD.org>
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On Thu, Jun 05, 2008 at 01:03:04PM +0100, Bruce M. Simpson wrote:
> Jo Rhett wrote:
>>
>> I am suggesting that given that the current bug list for 6.3-RELEASE is
>> both (a) too large and (b) breaks things that work fine in 6.2 ... that I
>> think pushing 6.2 (the real stable release) into EoL is a bit rushed. I
>> sympathize with the development costs of maintaining old versions. Again,
>> I will help in any way I can.
>
> I'm sorry to hear about the problems you've been having.
If the exact regression between 6.2 and 6.3 can be tracked down, great.
If it's in a specific driver, CVS commit logs or cvsweb will come in
handy. Otherwise, if it's some larger piece of code ("ohai i revamped
the intrupt handlar!"), chances of finding it are slimmer. I'm a bit
disappointed that Jo hasn't explicitly mentioned what's broken in 6.3
that's affecting him, because that might help everyone. Heck, I'll even
add it to my Commonly reported issue wiki page. PRs would be good, but
I'll gladly take past mailing list discussions.
Jo's opinion is reasonable, but the bottom line is that the FreeBSD
Project folks will always win the argument once the "it's best-effort"
trump card is played; the convo has to end once it's on the table.
I consider myself an advocate of open-source, but simultaneously, was
raised as a child to take responsibility for things I bring unto others.
I do not publicly release code/binaries for things I do not wish to
provide support for. Likewise, bugs in my software are my fault, thus
thus my responsibility to fix.
The FreeBSD Project does things differently than how I do. I have a
hard time understanding the opposing view, but every time it comes up, I
try a little harder to be open-minded about it.
Jo, as we share somewhat of the same viewpoint, I'll mention that it
would be within our best interest to try and understand the other
viewpoint, and hope that the results of (positive) karma are seen down
the road someday.
> If you want someone to take responsibility, make 'em an offer.
In my case, with some FreeBSD bugs in the past, I have offered monetary
compensation (hourly wages, reasonable by Bay Area standards) to
developers to fix issues -- only to receive absolutely no response.
Offering monetary compensation is not a solution, and I believe that's
because the core problem isn't lack of pay -- it's lack of time. That's
one which is really hard to solve, no matter what the conditions of an
open-source project.
On the other hand, there was the "donation thing" phk@ did when he was
out of work, which I felt was great. I still feel good about donating
to that.
--
| Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |
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