From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 9 16:51:12 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B406710656A8 for ; Thu, 9 Sep 2010 16:51:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhellenthal@gmail.com) Received: from mail-wy0-f182.google.com (mail-wy0-f182.google.com [74.125.82.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 408C98FC12 for ; Thu, 9 Sep 2010 16:51:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wyb33 with SMTP id 33so1899170wyb.13 for ; Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:51:11 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:sender:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:cc:subject:references:in-reply-to :x-enigmail-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=+m1B89Asfz1BHfJZBGLFqMLEf/v6RFaL6lIlyfb2L/U=; b=sMJBXdpH3dmOJ0OhzcW024zpGZEFLC7Jn5ZS9vQ0E4t2cbVBedxUdjLQ+9s/F8cSvZ 4+0bdf0d2a/jLSJ7YKwJQyWtp6cutrYpbN7E39FiZpOhgdddY6ZwGIrY4Ny3yWEDaY/g prPf0Wnfst6b6V05/rTBhAfdy1c2EA7RMe75k= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=sender:message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:cc:subject :references:in-reply-to:x-enigmail-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=pXf2W5lfiY+WiQ9voGz5sYsSSDDfIjNI/3D5reN1dWlHn6ji1+1DfH80dObNvvzi1g HCDtcMiH8Tz8W7eLMMVLmX8YtTA5nbhCFWxmjdb+6huS/NasQgUZHaeKUhSmADbk0V7q Meux5BRsDGcUBV1DdCtEzNPSZmMOlcK1fYVls= Received: by 10.227.146.147 with SMTP id h19mr2074wbv.222.1284051070950; Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:51:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from centel.dataix.local ([99.181.137.20]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id m25sm1294453wbc.19.2010.09.09.09.51.07 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:51:08 -0700 (PDT) Sender: "J. Hellenthal" Message-ID: <4C89107A.6050802@DataIX.net> Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:51:06 -0400 From: jhell User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100908 Lightning/1.0b1 Thunderbird MIME-Version: 1.0 To: vadim_nuclight@mail.ru References: <20100908073019.GA16493@lonesome.com> In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.1.2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Policy for removing working code (Was: HEADS UP: FreeBSD 6.4 and 8.0 EoLs coming soon) X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:51:12 -0000 On 09/08/2010 06:44, Vadim Goncharov wrote: > Hi Mark Linimon! > > On Wed, 8 Sep 2010 07:30:19 +0000; Mark Linimon wrote about 'Re: HEADS UP: FreeBSD 6.4 and 8.0 EoLs coming soon': > >>>> The reason is performance for overall network stack, not ideology. > >>> For a practical reasons, "it works but slow" is better than >>> "doesn't work at all (due to absence of code in the src tree)". >>> "Make it work. Make it right. Make it fast. In that order", know this? >>> Sacrificing "work" for "fast"?.. Hmm, if it is not ideology, then what is >>> it?.. >> >> It wasn't "it works but slow". It was "it works, but networking throughput >> is limited on the modern hardware that the majority of our users employ". >> In particular, IIUC, 10GB network drivers were suffering under the old >> strategy. We simply were not competitive with other OSes, and we have >> many multiples more users interested in 10GBE than in ISDN. > > I understand that we need to support modern fast hardware but that doesn't mean > we should drop working features for that. And... > >>> You do not understand the problem. It is not in notices & volunteers, but >>> rather in the Project's policy - delete something which could still work. >> >> You do not understand how this was handled. > > ...and how this is handled in other OSes to which we have compete, er? They all > also do dropping features to frighten away old users? Are there no alternative > ways to handle? Put network Giant code into bunch of #ifdef's, after all. > >> The situation was: an announcement was made that "in X months, all network >> drivers need to be made to run Giant-free so that FreeBSD can drop Giant >> from the neworking stack to move forward." Within that period, most of >> the drivers were updated. Repeated postings were made to the mailing list >> that "the following drivers still have not been converted, and need to be >> updated or they will be dropped." They weren't; they were droppped. > > No. See my answer to vwe@ that there were no proper announcements. With them, > for example, someone could get sponsored to update these drivers which were > needed by those FreeBSD users who can't maintain code themselves. That's a last > resort, more likely volunteers will come, but you get the idea. > >> So while it could "still" work, it was slowing down progress. > > If it is not ideology, then what is it?.. > >> The fact of the matter is, FreeBSD is a big project with a finite number >> of developers. We try to keep as much coverage of systems as we can, but >> a reality of any large software engineering project is that older features >> sometimes have to be dropped to make progress. > >>From time to time such critical cases could possibly be handled by another > ways, I've mentioned one possible above. > >> The code still exists in the repository for any interested party to pick >> up and modernize. > > I hope that for this particular case alternative from ports will be enough. > But policy is not tied to one particular case, alas. > Would you please stop provoking a situation for which you are no more involved in other than running FreeBSD. Thank you. PS: The website in your signature is broke. This should give you enough to do for a while. -- jhell,v