challenge: end of life for 6.2 is premature with buggy 6.3

[Dag-Erling Smørgrav]

Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists at tx.rr.com> writes:
> [...] I reacted in anger because I felt the OP was being savagely
> attacked rather than being responded to with professionalism.  Later
> in the thread some folks got around to asking which PRs he was
> referring to, but that was after attacking him for having the temerity
> to suggest that perhaps 6.2 shouldn't be EOL.  [...]  I don't recall
> him ever refusing.  I think after his initial post he's been forced to
> defend himself from attack from 360 degrees.  [...]

I came in late, and thus had the benefit of reading most of thread in
context rather than piece by piece over time, and in my opinion, the
above is a gross misrepresentation.  I think you need to go back and
re-read the thread from the beginning.  Here, let me help you.

Three people replied to Jo Rhett's initial email.  Here's what they
said, with Jo's own text elided:

Doug Barton:

> It isn't that we want people to upgrade, it's that we are trying to be
> realistic regarding what we have the resources to support.
> [...]
> I admit to not having been following 6.x too closely, but are these
> things that have been reported, or problems you're having personally?
> [...]
> Having an upgrade path is something every operation needs. "Set it and
> forget it" isn't a viable strategy in the current culture where 0-day
> vulnerabilities are becoming increasingly common.

Scott Long:

> Can you describe the bugs that are affecting you?
> [...]
> The expectation is always that newer versions of a stable branch will
> have few regressions, and thus upgrading is a low risk.

John Baldwin:

> FWIW, at Y! 6.3 is more stable than 6.2 (I had a list of about 10 patches for 
> known deadlocks and kernel panics that were errata candidates for 6.2 that 
> never made it into RELENG_6_2 but all of them are in 6.3).  We also have many 
> machines with bge(4) and from our perspective 6.3 has less issues with bge0 
> devices than 6.2.
> 
> Given the real world experience I have, your claims of instability w/o even 
> testing 6.3 border on silly.  Also, when it comes to bge(4), you need to be 
> _very_ specific about what chipsets you are using and comparing those with 
> the chipsets in the bug reports you read.  The bge(4) driver in particular 
> covers a vast range of different hardware variations and is a bit of a 
> hodge-podge itself.  If there is a problem with a 5705 card then it may be 
> specific to just 5705 parts and not affect 575x, etc. parts.
> 
> Again, with 3ware, there are two different drivers (twe(4) vs twa(4)) and 
> again, you need to be more specific with which driver you are using and which 
> model controllers you have.

It takes a very active imagination to describe this as an "attack from
360 degrees".

The fun starts with the following exchange between Jo and Kris Kennaway
(who responded to Doug):

Kris Kennaway:

> Also, it's not like anyone should have been caught by surprise by
> the 6.2 EoL; the expiry date has been advertised since the 6.2
> release itself.

Jo Rhett:

> It has changed multiple times.  I keep reviewing and finding 6.3 bugs
> outstanding, and then observe the EoL get pushed.
>
> I'm surprised that it failed to get pushed this time.

This is competely untrue - but Kris doesn't swallow the bait, and relies
patiently and politely:

> I'm sorry that the FreeBSD project failed to conform to your
> expectations.  However, I invite you to actually try 6.3 for yourself
> instead of assuming that it will fail.

This is the crux of the matter - Jo is complaining about software he
hasn't even tried.  There is absolutely no way anybody can help him
until he actually tries 6.3 and reports any actual bugs and regressions
he finds.

This subthread quickly degrades after Chris Marlatt inists that we
should support LTS releases for four years instead of two, and takes
personal offense at the fact that we don't have the resources to do so.

Let's jump back to Scott Long's subthread:

Scott Long:

> Can you describe the bugs that are affecting you?

Jo Rhett:

> gmirror failures, 3ware raid driver timeouts, bge0 problems.  All
> three in production use on dozens of systems.

That is also untrue.  None of these are "bugs that are affecting [Jo]",
since he hasn't tried running 6.3 at all.

Scott Long:

> Give me specific details on the 3ware and bge problems.

Jo Rhett:

> Familiar with searching the open bug reports?  That's where I found
> them.
> 
> Sorry, I'm knee-deep in a major project that I've been working 16+
> hours a day on right now, and I just don't have the time for spurious
> queries.  Query the open bug reports for 6.3 and then explain to me
> again why 6.2 is no longer supported.

Scott asks him to describe the problems he's having, and he calls that
"spurious queries" which he doesn't have time for.  Is that Scott
attacking and disrespecting Jo, or Jo attacking and disrespecting Scott?
No wonder Scott gets annoyed:

> Really, if it's such a big issue that you have time to bitch an moan
> on the mailing lists, I don't understand why you don't have time to
> also
> help a goddamned developer identify the problem.  Are you actually
> experiencing problems with 6.3, or not?

Jo Rhett:

> None of the bugs were in a state with the developer trying to identify
> the system.  We have several systems dedicated for FreeBSD developers
> to use for test cases already, and we'd be happy to provide another if
> one was necessary.

Dodging the issue - Scott asked a very precise question, and the
precise answer is "no".

(how can Jo tell that noone is working on these PRs, either on their own
hardware or in offline correspondance with the originator?)

Max Laier steps in, in response to "spurious queries":

> Because the people who support FreeBSD 6.2 are also knee-deep in major 
> projects of their own!?  We try try to not introduce regressions as we 
> move forward supporting new features and hardware, but unless people put 
> in some effort of their own helping us to test ...
> 
> You obviously did not put in any effort of your own so why would you 
> expect us to do the work for you?  Unless you can provide "*EXACT*" bug 
> reports and show willingness to help debugging them, there really is not 
> much point in this thread.

But Jo refuses.  He won't provide even a single PR number.  He prefers
to equivocate, allude and hint:

> The bugs in question were very well documented.  None of them were in
> a state indicating that the developer could not reproduce nor were
> they waiting for more info.    Given that situation, I didn't see a
> need to add more to a known problem.
> 
> *IF* any of them had been looking for test cases, I would have been
> happy to build a test system and turn it over to the developer in
> question.  We do that fairly routinely.

(again, how can he know for sure that nobody is working on these bugs?)

I won't pretend to know what Jo is thinking or what his motivation is,
but in my experience, when people respond in this manner, it's because
they know they have no solid data or arguments, and are trying to save
face.

It goes downhill from there.

That leaves John's subthread, which I won't go into since it's mainly
about your own issues with bce(4) / bge(4) and seems fairly
constructive.

I hope this helps you to better understand who's attacking who, and
who's being rude to who.

DES
-- 
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - des at des.no