Support for 5.x (Was: Re: What about BIND 9.3.4 in FreeBSD in base system ?)

[Chris]

On 06/02/07, Remko Lodder <remko at elvandar.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 01:21:44PM +0000, Chris wrote:
> > On 03/02/07, Julian H. Stacey <jhs at flat.berklix.net> wrote:
> > think you hit the nail bang on the head, I am one such person who
> > tried to submit a bug causing crashes and have found a lack of
> > enthusiasm to get the bug fixed.  One thing I have noticed about 6.x
> > is there is many features that 5.x doesnt have, so it looks clear
> > there is lots of activity in working on new code but little activity
> > in fixing bugs and working on stability.
>
> Hello,
>
> I feel poked by this, and it saddens me that this is the reply we
> get. I know that we aren't really up to date with feedback on PR
> tickets, and that a lot of tickets are stale and never looked at
> (I have several of those on my name as well). The sad reason is though
> that we are all busy, some of us cannot do more then we can and some
> of us (the bugbusting teams) try to house keep the tickets as much
> as possible, but that is not always possible with the limited resources
> we have. If this bugs you enough; you are always invited to help us
> making sure the ticking flow can be handled.
>
> >
> > Example I can give is I noticed freebsd 5.4 has limited support for
> > nforce 4 ide, this is year 2005 code, and there was a patch to
> > complete the support so sata was supported.  Checking the same src
> > file on freebsd 6.2 has all references to nforce 4 removed, the patch
> > was apperently close to been commited to 6-current at the time so I
> > can only guess that they got bored of trying to make it stable so
> > simply removed the code to not delay 6.0 release and this explains why
> > my hardware works better in 5.x then 6.x on this particular server
> > using nforce4.
>
> Releng_5 is a different working base then 6_x, things that are in 6
> are not always in 5 and visa versa. Can you give me a clear example
> of what was removed and what should be there so that I can have a
> look at this and perhaps even implement it? If you have a ticket number
> that would be even more great so that I can see the audit-trial.
>
>
> >
> > In general I have noticed a decline in robustness and stability as
> > freebsd release numbers go up, freebsd 4.x was very stable and its not
> > hard to see why people refuse to move from it, 5.x was somewhat less
> > robust but I think 5.x is more stable then 6.x, 6.x appears to have
> > some compatbility problems with hardware and is more picky with what
> > hardware it works well with.
> >
> > If support is planning to be dropped to 5.x early in its life (only at
> > .5 release) then it is dissapointing and a sign that there is no
> > motivation to work on old code and old bugs.  I wonder if a paypal
> > slush fund where people who use freebsd can donate to and this slush
> > fund is then used to pay devs who fix pr's oldest first of course
> > would be effective.
>
> Obviously you can claim you can do better, please show us, we will
> punish you after time with a commit bit and then you can help us out
> all the time! Seriously though; the various development paths make
> the RELENG_5 branch a development branch and 6 a stable branch.
> No one ever said that 5.x was going to live long because of the
> transition phase between 4.x and 6.x.
>
> Given your feedback I expect to see you on freebsd-bugbusters
> pretty soon (the mailinglist) to help clear the old PR's and
> make sure everything is OK.
>
> Yes I understand that my tone is a bit harsh, but I think the
> statements above are emotional, not based on the reality though,
> the teams work very hard to please everyone, but we have limited
> resources and cannot do everything. It is rather easy to go pick
> on the teams, but that is not somethign that will help solve the
> problem. Actually helping out will, so I'd request Chris and
> others to help the bugbusting teams and if possible other teams
> as well, then and only then we can try to be a brave schoolkid.
>
> Thanks.
>
> >
> > Chris
> > _______________________________________________
> > freebsd-security at freebsd.org mailing list
> > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-security
> > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-security-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
>
> --
> Kind regards,
>
>     Remko Lodder               ** remko at elvandar.org
>     FreeBSD                    ** remko at FreeBSD.org
>
>     /* Quis custodiet ipsos custodes */
>

I would if I could code unfortenatly I cant, I only found out about
the nforce 4 been present in freebsd 5.x yesterday after someone found
the old post and link to the patch when we were discussing it.

I have just submitted a post the hardware mail list about it and it
has a link to the patch and post from 2004.

I do feel a bit upset that freebsd 6.x is been pushed so much as 5.x
seems to be a burden on the developers when I have about half a dozen
machines in production using 5.x and another half a dozen using 6.x
and the 5.x machines are causing the least problems, this is from my
own experience, the only benefits I am seeing from 6.x is the extra
features and performance.  I have 1 freebsd 4.x machine in production
and that blows both 5.x and 6.x away for performance and stability but
is of course missing many new features.  Back on topic with bind I
would have thought it would go in both 5.x and 6.x but I do agree that
maybe just the security fixes is enough and if someone wants the
entire new version they can install from ports.

Chris