Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:17:48 +0100 From: Peter Much <pmc@citylink.dinoex.sub.org> To: Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.org> Cc: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.org, Peter Much <pmc@citylink.dinoex.sub.org> Subject: Re: "s/stable/broken/g" Message-ID: <20080328011747.GA10803@gate.oper.dinoex.org> In-Reply-To: <47EABABC.5010309@FreeBSD.org> References: <Jy5EA6.1n3@citylink.dinoex.sub.org> <Jy75oC.Es7@citylink.dinoex.sub.org> <47EABABC.5010309@FreeBSD.org>
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On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 10:06:04PM +0100, Kris Kennaway wrote: ! Software always has bugs, and it is a mistake to think that the "stable" ! designation does not mean "has no bugs". It's unfortunate that you have ! hit a couple of them, but please continue to work through the process of ! documenting them. Oh, don't worry, sure I do! I was just wondering where we are heading. I did not perceive this kind of problems the earlier upgrades (since Release 2) - sure there were problems with the new stuff, but not with the established things. And I do not worry if support for something is not happening or is dropped (due to lack of interest or ressources or whatever), but if already existing functionality just silently goes away with apparently nobody noticing, then I perceive it as a loss of one of the core values of a *nix-on-pc: that you do not need to buy new and fast hardware to get things done (you only need *reliable* hardware - and the newer one often is reliable only if built for servers; the consumer stuff is just getting WORSE.) ! With regards to your ethernet problems, old cards like ed do not get ! much testing thesedays because few people use them. Combined with the ! fact that ethernet problems are often specific to certain hardware ! models or revisions, you may be the only person to have tried this ! particular case in many years. Well, there are two reasons why I am using them: 1) if you place twisted-pair under the carpet, it will break after some months. On BNC cables i can walk for years, it does no harm. :) 2) It's true, i get a lovely dual if_fxp 10/100 64bit card on ebay for 1 euro, and it actually runs on a pentium2 - but i need a router then; and there what i get -at the consumer end- is so incredibly full of bugs, I will not rely on these! And I cannot fix them. :( ! By the same token, these problems are ! difficult to fix without a developer having access to the same problem ! hardware. You might consider offering to ship it to an interested ! developer if one can be found. I definitely will! The question is if a problem comes from an extravagance in one specific model of hardware (then it is not worth to put work into ancient hardware), or if there was a logical coding mistake during development within an existing codepiece that is now seldom used. The latter I would like to have fixed. And the other point is: I do not currently know how well people in less developed countries are supplied with suitable hardware - but I see them picking up on *nix - and I like that. :) rgds, PMc
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