Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Thu, 21 Jul 2005 16:12:47 -0400
From:      Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
To:        Karl Denninger <karl@denninger.net>
Cc:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Quality of FreeBSD
Message-ID:  <1121976767.7274.60.camel@zappa.Chelsea-Ct.Org>
In-Reply-To: <20050721192613.GA61902@FS.denninger.net>
References:  <200507211803.j6LI34dV005050@ferens.net> <20050721194500.W9208@fledge.watson.org> <20050721192613.GA61902@FS.denninger.net>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 14:26 -0500, Karl Denninger wrote:

> Ok, Robert, but then here's the question....
> 
> How come the ATA code which was very stable in 4.x was screwed with in a
> production release, breaking it, with no path backwards to the working
> code?

Not to mention that this happened during the 5.x release cycle.  It's
one thing to have a regression creep in when moving from one major
release to another (e.g., "oh, that's the fallout from introducing Big
Feature XYZ" or "a big architectural revamp may have broken some
things"), but it's another thing entirely to have it happen between
minor releases, which are supposed to be "evolution, not revolution."

(Although the whole "Early Adopter" status for early 5.x releases might
mean all that is muddied when it comes to the 5.x series.)

My main disappointment with the ATA DMA TIMEOUT bug is not that it crept
in (these things happen), but that it did not seem to be taken seriously
when it had done so.  (Though, as Robert said, if the developers can't
reproduce the problem, it's hard for them to work on and fix it.)

Cheers,

Paul.
-- 
e-mail: paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?1121976767.7274.60.camel>