[FreeBSD-rc] Re: RFC: Removal of the old rc system from -current

[Doug Barton]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Scott Long wrote:

> Doug,
>
> My premise is this: there are people who cvsup and build world on a
> regular basis, track current@, etc, and there are those who are only
> interested in running official releases.  My concern is not the first
> group, but the second group.

So far I agree with you 100%. :)

> The old rc system has been around for quite some time, and it might be a
> shock if it disappears without warning.  The fact that 5.1 has the
> possiblity of being a worthly release means that more people are likely
> to jump straight from 4.x to 5.1, and might not be aware of rcNG from
> 5.0.

So the question I'm asking is, which is a greater shock. Making a clean
break from old to new in the 5.1 release, or leaving the bits around but
non-functional in 5.1, and then yanking them away in 5.2?

As others have pointed out, Joe Average User interacts with the rc system
through only one channel, the config files (rc.conf, rc.firewall,
sysctl.conf, etc.). That mechanism is totally unchanged from branch to
branch. We're even supporting old names for variables like xntpd, portmap,
etc.

The other thing that occurs to me is that if the people you're most
concerned about are those installing the release for the first time,
perhaps we can work together on a splash screen in sysinstall that
highlights this as one of the new features in 5.x?

While I understand your concerns from a general release engineering
perspective, because of the uniqueness of this case, I not only think that
they are unfounded, but I think that your proposed solution will actually
make the problem you're trying to solve worse.

BTW, in addition to the annoying message in /etc/rc I also just committed
a notice in UPDATING so we can catch as many people as possible before the
change.

Doug

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