freebsd stable - Sep 2014 - [HEADSUP] pkg(8) is now the only package management tool

Alban Hertroys <haramrae at gmail.com>:
> On 2 September 2014 11:08, Julian Elischer <julian at freebsd.org>
wrote:
>> On 9/1/14, 8:03 PM, Andrew Berg wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2014.09.01 21:39, Julian Elischer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> sigh..  when are we as a project, all going to learn that
reality in
>>>> business is
>>>> that you often need to install stuff that is old. Its not
always your
>>>> choice.
>>>> The custommers require it..
>>>> You should try arguing with someone like Bank of Americas
security and
>>>> operations
>>>> department some day about whether they want to suddenly upgrade
300
>>>> machines
>>>> for no real reason (from their perspective).
>>>
>>> FreeBSD minor version upgrades are meant to be non-disruptive.
However, I
>>> will
>>> admit that I have not performed any such upgrades in a critical
>>> environment, so
>>> if you think they are disruptive, please enlighten me with the
details.
>>> Also, there are options out there for getting support for extended
periods
>>> if
>>> you need it. Some companies are built around providing support for
things
>>> that
>>> the original developers have long abandoned because some businesses
need
>>> it.
>>
>>
>> It's not how disruptive they are technically.
>> it's how many months of shakedown testing you have to go through
before they
>> allow you to put new software on any production system.
>
> Just adding here, in commercial environments things don't change
> quickly or easily. Whether this applies to the current issue with pkg
> is not for me to say.
>
> For example, certain commercial upstream software vendors require to
> go through a certification process before they even consider
> supporting the new software you intend to use with theirs.
>
> Admittedly we haven't run into this issue in relation to FreeBSD, but
> we certainly have with Firefox. As an example, the last version of
> Firefox that Information Builders' WebFOCUS 7.7 supports is 3.6.7
> (currently available versions are 31 or 32!) and for Internet Explorer
> that's 7 (currently at 11).
> If you run into any kind of problem, the standard answer is to use a
> browser that they support. Good luck with that!
> Firefox 3.6.7 was released on July 20, 2010; over 4 years ago.
>
> In such cases you're more or less required to keep an old system
> around that still has such old packages, if only to see if you can
> reproduce any issues you encounter (with modern versions of your
> software) on those old versions.
>
> With the deprecation of the old pkg_* tools you run into a conflict;
> You can either update packages that are _not_ under certification for
> such a vendor and get security updates and fixes using the new pkg, or
> you have to stick with the certified software and _not_ get any
> security updates or fixes.
>
>
> It gets more interesting if you have to deal with manufacturing
> processes (something we're looking to use FreeBSD for to replace our
> current OpenVMS systems before they go out of support), as often
> automatons write data to external databases and such software resides
> in PLC's. Manufacturing equipment tends to age and the kind of
> external databases they support is limited to what was available when
> they were new and the capabilities of the PLC involved.
>
> I can totally understand that at some point it starts to get
> impossible to maintain two separate packaging systems and I understand
> that you think 2 years is enough time to shake things out, but
> software vendors aren't that quick. For many, 2 years is a short time.
>
It also should be noted that everyone had enough time to raise those issues
in the time between tthe announcement and now. No one did. Now that it is
gone, they are brought up, while they should have been long time ago
instead. It can't work that way.

My 2 cents in this discussion :-).

Cheers
Marcus

Marcus von Appen wrote:
> Alban Hertroys <haramrae at gmail.com>:
>
>>
>> I can totally understand that at some point it starts to get
>> impossible to maintain two separate packaging systems and I understand
>> that you think 2 years is enough time to shake things out, but
>> software vendors aren't that quick. For many, 2 years is a short
time.
>>
>
> It also should be noted that everyone had enough time to raise those
> issues
> in the time between tthe announcement and now. No one did. Now that it is
> gone, they are brought up, while they should have been long time ago
> instead. It can't work that way.
>
> My 2 cents in this discussion :-).
Actually I brought it up as soon as I found the EOL was a deadline for
breaking pkg_* tools, was told, "too late now" - that was more than 2
weeks ago, less than 2 months ago (forget the date) ... I'm happy with
an EOL and working to upgrade everything, I'm not happy that the EOL was
not actually an EOL and it was actually a deadline.

-- 
Michelle Sullivan
http://www.mhix.org/

On 2 Sep 2014, at 12:47, Michelle Sullivan <michelle@sorbs.net> wrote:
> I'm not happy that the EOL was
> not actually an EOL and it was actually a deadline.
I'm not sure what you think the difference is.  The EOL says 'the
FreeBSD project no longer supports this configuration'.  If you are not
relying on us for support (i.e. using an old or forked ports tree, or building
your own packages), then things will continue to work.  If you are expecting
(unpaid, volunteer) support from the project in the form of packages and a
useable ports tree, then you need to use a supported configuration.

If being able to use the ports tree without installing pkg(8) is sufficiently
valuable to you, then I can put you in touch with some companies that will
backport things to a copy of the ports tree for your use (although the price tag
will scale with the number of ports that you want to support).

If, however, your complaint is that it's hard to get new software certified
for your system *then this change has absolutely no effect on you!*  If
you're not worried about upgrading ports at all, then you can just stick
with the ports tree version from the time of your release.  If you're able
to upgrade ports, then upgrading the pkg port should not be an issue.

David

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On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 6:52 AM, Marcus von Appen <mva at freebsd.org>
wrote:
> It also should be noted that everyone had enough time to raise those issues
> in the time between tthe announcement and now
>
If this is an issue that needed to be brought up, then FreeBSD has
apparently never before been used in an enterprise???

-- 
brandon s allbery kf8nh                               sine nomine associates
allbery.b at gmail.com                                  ballbery at
sinenomine.net
unix, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure, xmonad        http://sinenomine.net

Brandon Allbery <allbery.b@gmail.com>:
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 6:52 AM, Marcus von Appen <mva@freebsd.org>
wrote:
>
>> It also should be noted that everyone had enough time to raise those
issues
>> in the time between tthe announcement and now
>>
>
> If this is an issue that needed to be brought up, then FreeBSD has
> apparently never before been used in an enterprise???
I'm tempted to ask, if the enterprise has SLAs to ensure continuity,
even after the official support has ended? ;-)

Cheers
Marcus


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> On Sep 2, 2014, at 4:47, Michelle Sullivan <michelle@sorbs.net>
wrote:
> 
> Marcus von Appen wrote:
>> Alban Hertroys <haramrae@gmail.com>:
>> 
>>> 
>>> I can totally understand that at some point it starts to get
>>> impossible to maintain two separate packaging systems and I
understand
>>> that you think 2 years is enough time to shake things out, but
>>> software vendors aren't that quick. For many, 2 years is a
short time.
>> 
>> It also should be noted that everyone had enough time to raise those
>> issues
>> in the time between tthe announcement and now. No one did. Now that it
is
>> gone, they are brought up, while they should have been long time ago
>> instead. It can't work that way.
>> 
>> My 2 cents in this discussion :-).
> 
> Actually I brought it up as soon as I found the EOL was a deadline for
> breaking pkg_* tools, was told, "too late now" - that was more
than 2
> weeks ago, less than 2 months ago (forget the date) ... I'm happy with
> an EOL and working to upgrade everything, I'm not happy that the EOL
was
> not actually an EOL and it was actually a deadline.
Hi Michelle,
    One subtle point that I wanted to ask for clarification is you thought the
EOL announcement for pkg_install was going to be "pkg_install is no longer
going to be supported, but you can still use it", instead of
"pkg_install support is going to be removed from the tree" -- is that
correct?
    You'd probably hate to do this, but forking the sources and changing
from portsnap to a git or svn backed ports tree that downloads a tarball
snapshot might be the best resolution to this issue now...
Thanks!
-Garrett
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+--On 2 septembre 2014 13:47:32 +0200 Michelle Sullivan
<michelle@sorbs.net> wrote:
| Marcus von Appen wrote:
|> Alban Hertroys <haramrae@gmail.com>:
|> 
|>> 
|>> I can totally understand that at some point it starts to get
|>> impossible to maintain two separate packaging systems and I understand
|>> that you think 2 years is enough time to shake things out, but
|>> software vendors aren't that quick. For many, 2 years is a short
time.
|>> 
|> 
|> It also should be noted that everyone had enough time to raise those
|> issues
|> in the time between tthe announcement and now. No one did. Now that it is
|> gone, they are brought up, while they should have been long time ago
|> instead. It can't work that way.
|> 
|> My 2 cents in this discussion :-).
| 
| Actually I brought it up as soon as I found the EOL was a deadline for
| breaking pkg_* tools, was told, "too late now" - that was more than
2
| weeks ago, less than 2 months ago (forget the date) ... I'm happy with
| an EOL and working to upgrade everything, I'm not happy that the EOL was
| not actually an EOL and it was actually a deadline.

I still don't see what you have to say about what EOL mean, it's *End Of
Life* meaning after, it is dead, and won't exist any more.

-- 
Mathieu Arnold
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