Ok everyone, I think thats enough about this for now. I think the developers and users have made their points clear, and they're no going to agree any more (but they may agree less) over time. For now, I think we should wait for the following: * Some users standing up, stating "yes, 6.2 lifetime means a lot to us, we'll happily contribute back security fixes and/or bug fixes for our hardware so we can continue using it!", and then doing so. * Some users (Jo, in particular) providing hardware which 6.2 runs on but 6.3 may or may not, and allowing interested developers to jump on and test/debug, so this whole discussion can be ejected out the nearest airlock. * Users figuring out they can contribute back to the community. It isn't hard, honest. How do you think some of us learnt how stuff works? :) Anything else, really, is just going to continue upsetting people. Yes, users want stability in their specific environments. Yes, developers are mere mortals, and users should be happy that there's even a project here they can get access to without some kind of warez-like upload/download ratio. further discussion is just going to upset people even further. :) Adrian -- Adrian Chadd - adrian@freebsd.org
> I think the developers and users have made their points clear, and > they're no going to agree any more (but they may agree less) over > time.You make it sound as if all users are of the same opinion as Jo. The majority of the responses from users running 6.3 in the thread(s) have been positive feedback of its operating properly. I know what you meant, though. Just don't want anyone to think there is somehow a line being drawn in the sand between users and developers. :)> * Some users standing up, stating "yes, 6.2 lifetime means a lot to > us, we'll happily contribute back security fixes and/or bug fixes for > our hardware so we can continue using it!", and then doing so.While it would be interesting to see the response here, it still doesn't necessarily provide a solution. It will still involved developers' time to QA the user-submitted patches, so it won't entirely eliminate the additional workload for maintainers. There is also zero (enforceable) accountability. If X people commit to this, what happens when only a fraction of them actually do end up helping?> * Some users (Jo, in particular) providing hardware which 6.2 runs on > but 6.3 may or may not, and allowing interested developers to jump on > and test/debug, so this whole discussion can be ejected out the > nearest airlock.That would, of course, require that Jo actually try to run 6.3 on his particular hardware, something he said he does not have the time (currently) to do. As others have pointed out, hardware often has numerous revisions and it's quite possible 6.3 will work fine for him.> Anything else, really, is just going to continue upsetting people. > Yes, users want stability in their specific environments. Yes, > developers are mere mortals, and users should be happy that there's > even a project here they can get access to without some kind of > warez-like upload/download ratio. further discussion is just going to > upset people even further. :)I agree, the horse has been beaten to death numerous times. I guess the one thing that I've taken away from this entire discussion is that perhaps it would be useful to the end users to have a managed/tracked list of regressions between releases. I know there are known bugs published, but is there a list of items that are strictly regressions? Even if it doesn't solve the problem of users with particular hardware configurations being able to run the new release, at least it's something people can use in deciding when/if to upgrade or whether they want to go the route of self-supporting security/errata fixes until they find a release they feel comfortable migrating to? Just my two cents, and hopefully I'm not throwing wood on the fire here. Regards, Josh
On Sun, 8 Jun 2008 10:17:20 +0800 "Adrian Chadd" <adrian@freebsd.org> wrote:> and users should be happy that there's even a project here they can > get access to without some kind of warez-like upload/download ratio.Although I agree that FreeBSD's availability to the public is great I do not agree with this "you are a user, so just be happy" attitude. If developers get pissed off by (some) user comments I might understand that, but if they can't deal with "users" and their POVs they might better quit being a developer to an -open- project like FreeBSD and start developing products just for themselves. You have developers in 'flavours'; you also have all sorts of users ;-)> further discussion is just going to upset people even further. :)Being/geeting upset is -always- ones own fault. After all, it's only a discussion, not a war. So why be upset about words? -- Dick Hoogendijk -- PGP/GnuPG key: 01D2433D ++ http://nagual.nl/ + SunOS sxde 01/08 ++
On Sun, Jun 08, 2008 at 10:17:20AM +0800, Adrian Chadd wrote:> Ok everyone, I think thats enough about this for now. > > I think the developers and users have made their points clear, and > they're no going to agree any more (but they may agree less) over > time.Well, *please* don't assume all users agree with Jo. Some of us actually read the EOL date on 6.2, assumed it meant what it said, and made an informed decision to use 6.2 as the best candidate available at that date, even knowing we'd be forced to upgrade sooner rather than later. If as an admin/user I could give a message to the developers, it would be a very different one: I would like to one day see a -STABLE line, perhaps 8.x, perhaps later, which would by *design* be strong enough and incorporate enough flexibility in its core design that it could be continued for as many as 5 years of minor releases (rather than by *default* as 4.x was due to the difficulty of the SMP model transition and the 5.x stability problems.) If I knew that were an eventual development goal, I'd be even happier with the FreeBSD development team. I have no damn idea how to achieve that goal, and as a software developer I know it's ridiculously, insanely difficult to design to a goal like that, but I do think that continuation is one of the main factors behind the nostalgia for the 4.x line. -- Clifton -- Clifton Royston -- cliftonr@iandicomputing.com / cliftonr@lava.net President - I and I Computing * http://www.iandicomputing.com/ Custom programming, network design, systems and network consulting services