Re: Dropping support for old binaries
Le 08/06/2015 10:17, Brian Buhrow a écrit : hello. There is a proposal around to drop support for old NetBSD binaries in current ersions of NetBSD. For example, nuking COMPAT_NOMID, COMPAT_10, COMPAT_12, COMPAT_13 COMPAT_14, etc. from the the -current source tree. I'll let the original poster post his reasons for this proposal on this list, but here's my response to that proposal: Thanks for your mail. I understand all the things you've said, and I understand that backward compatibility can be useful. However, we were only talking about the old compatibility options. Do you think other people - or companies - in your case maintain twenty-year-old binaries for products and services that are supposed to be reliable? This is partly what I said in my first mail: companies that need extreme compatibility are companies that maintain critical systems, and they cannot afford to update these frequently. You cannot expect that level of reliability with the old compat options we have. As I already said: people are not likely to use these old options very frequently, and the fact that we have no generic way to test them does not improve the situation.
Re: Dropping support for old binaries
On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 09:37:07PM +0300, Aleksej Saushev wrote: proposal on this list, but here's my response to that proposal: I suggest that you don't misrepresent the original proposal. The original proposal was about dropping the support from GENERIC, that is not exposing rotten code to potential attackers. Those who want to continue running old code can always either load a module or build custom kernel. This is actually good since this could somewhat improve the image of NetBSD in some information security circles. that's not how I understood the initial proposal. The way I understood it, the proposal was to remove the code, not only the option from kernel configs. -- Manuel Bouyer bou...@antioche.eu.org NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference --
Re: Dropping support for old binaries
Hello, Brian Buhrow buh...@nfbcal.org writes: hello. There is a proposal around to drop support for old NetBSD binaries in current ersions of NetBSD. For example, nuking COMPAT_NOMID, COMPAT_10, COMPAT_12, COMPAT_13 COMPAT_14, etc. from the the -current source tree. I'll let the original poster post his reasons for this proposal on this list, but here's my response to that proposal: I suggest that you don't misrepresent the original proposal. The original proposal was about dropping the support from GENERIC, that is not exposing rotten code to potential attackers. Those who want to continue running old code can always either load a module or build custom kernel. This is actually good since this could somewhat improve the image of NetBSD in some information security circles. -- HE CE3OH...
Re: Dropping support for old binaries
On Mon, Jun 08, 2015 at 01:17:54AM -0700, Brian Buhrow wrote: I'm done ranting, but I truly hope we don't decide that maintaining backward compatibility is not a priority. Such a decision would be a very sad one for me indeed! Strongly seconded. I can live with (say) sysctl bits disabling these compats by default (if that can be implemented cheaply w/o slowing down non-compat code paths). I also like the fact that the compat code can be easily removed by disabling config options for local kernel builds. But disabling these options by default (so requiring a reboot with a changed kernel when you need them) is inaccaptable IMHO. You always need them urgently and unplanned, and they should just be available in default installs. Martin
