Re: PS/2 deprecation situation

On Sat, Jul 18, 2026 at 10:15:22PM +0200, vermaden wrote:
> 
> > What is the reason to remove it?
> > Isn't it reasonable to keep it and,
> > if needed, adapt it to current needs?
> 
> If You would ask me - then I would just 'keep' it - I do not see any reason to remove it.

Note that I am ot speaking for any FreeBSD developers or (obviously)
the FreeBSD Project as a whole :) Also, I am not writing this about
PS/2 keyboard/mouse support specificaly, but only in general.
This is my personal reaction to your statement, nothing more.
It is also possible that you know what I am about to say, and that
it was implied in your statement; in that case, I apologize, but
I do feel that it needs to be said for the benefit of other people who
might not know it.

There is *always* at least one reason to consider removing any piece of
software: the cost/value comromise is no longer "right".

Any piece of software, especially in a large project, *always* brings
a maintenance cost: one must consider it when making large changes, or
even small changes in related parts; it must be periodically tested to
make sure it still works; it must be kept up-to-date with language
standards, compiler versions, etc. This cost may sometimes seem
negligible, but in a large project with many parts, it does add up.

Of course, for most parts of a project there is also a value in
their continued maintenance - actual users actually, wel, use them :)
Stil, as time goes by, things change, and sometimes it becomes
difficult to maintain, say, a driver for a piece of hardware that
is used by fewer and fewer people. Again, I am not saying this is
necessarily the case here, I still speak in general.

So every time some member of some project says on a mailing list or
a forum or whatever "we are considering dropping this part", there are
people who claim that there is no reason to. In many cases at least
some of those people do not actually realize that the cost/value
compromise exists, they only think of the value part. But yes,
there is always a reason to *consider* removing a part of the code;
whether it is reason enough to actually remove it is to be decided
on a case-by-case basis :)

And now I will leave actual FreeBSD developers to chime in :)

G'luck,
Peter

-- 
Peter Pentchev  roam@ringlet.net roam@debian.org peter@morpheusly.com
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