On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Bill Fenner wrote:
> Hopefully tcpdump still supports SunOS 4. I think we can stretch
> all the way back to Linux's libc5...
I've never really gotten figured what's to great about supporting all the
platforms and all the ancient versions. :-)
Even versions vendors themselves haven't supported in a long time (SunOS 4
-- it was released 4-5 years ago or so?). Or systems where vendors no
longer exist.
Or systems which no one semi-actively working on tcpdump can access to
test if tcpdump does indeed work on it.
The weight of the past can become awfully heavy. It hinders your ability
to work on new features, fix bugs etc. because you have to guess whether
everything works on all systems.. and you can't test it.
If you don't want to upgrade your system, you should be able to settle for
version X, or provide patches/access to someone who cares.
E.g. my savestr -> strdup patch apparently got rejected (I've sent out
workarounds though) because of a fear some ancient system might not have
strdup(3), even though:
CONFORMING TO
SVID 3, BSD 4.3
Personally, I see no reason for supporting libc5 or the like anymore.
That doesn't mean there couldn't be a tcpdump-3.5.3 release to fix major
bugs/security issues though if those came up. This is how the old
architectures and systems probably should be handled.
--
Pekka Savola "Tell me of difficulties surmounted,
Netcore Oy not those you stumble over and fall"
Systems. Networks. Security. -- Robert Jordan: A Crown of Swords
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