New rc.d code merge timing (Was: Re: Portupgrade confused about editors/emacs)

[Tobias Roth]

On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 11:56:32PM -0800, Doug Barton wrote:
> 
> Your point here has a lot of merit, and I think it's worth my explaining 
> the reasoning for doing this the way I did. The primary motivating factor 
> was the upcoming freeze for the RELENG_6 branch on January 30. We knew that 
> the code in the base was sound, and did what it was supposed to do. We also 
> knew that there were going to be some ports that needed fixing. The problem 
> is that we have a chicken and egg issue here. A lot of testing was done on 
> the boot scripts of a lot of ports, but not only were errors discovered in 
> boot scripts that seemed perfectly valid, but many of the problems we're 
> seeing now are related to ordering issues. This in turn depends on what 
> combination of ports that the user has installed. All the testing in the 
> world would not have uncovered every possible way for this to break, 
> although it might have reduced some of the pain. Ultimately, this is going 
> to be part of the process of enabling this functionality any way you slice 
> it.
> 
> It's also worth noting, although I've posted these stats before, that there 
> are roughly 650 ports that install boot scripts. Of these, 350 have been 
> converted to new style rc.d, the others have not. The 300 that have not 
> been converted are not affected by this change. Of the 350 that have been 
> converted, very few have exhibited problems. That's not to say that the 
> problems we've seen aren't important, and obviously they need to be fixed. 
> However this is a pretty good track record overall.
> 
> At the end of the day, and after extensive discussion with the various 
> stakeholders, I made the decision to MFC sooner than later in order to get 
> things as cleaned up as possible before the freeze. I still think that's 
> the right decision, but I acknowledge that reasonable minds could differ on 
> this topic.

I can understand your position. Yes, I personally would have done it
differently but I also accept that there are good reasons behind a quick
MFC in this case. And since most people (including me) will not run
-STABLE on their production boxes, it may be not that much of a problem
if some ports startup scripts are broken for a while. Hopefully, all
problems have been uncovered once 6.1 will be shipped.

thanks, t.