Code removal - Was Re: Future of the ie(4) driver

[Julian Elischer]

Peter Jeremy wrote:
> On 2007-Jul-05 21:56:19 -0500, Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com> wrote:
>>> I'm sure even if we push it to a News item and send it out to
>>> -announce there'll be someone who said, "Why didn't I get a personally
>>> couriered letter to my home, my place of business and my vacation
>>> home?"
>> Although IMHO you are slightly overstating this, I will note that even
>> with a well-documented ports deprecation process (ports are tagged for
>> ~2 months, notification emails are sent to ports@), there will always
>> be someone who doesn't get the message.  You cannot optimize for complete
>> notification.
> 
> Agreed but I think a more "formal" deprecation process would be nice
> for the core software.  Possibly a 'deprecated' section in the release
> notes (some commercial Unices do this) and maybe a 'deprecated' tag
> for the relevant drivers in the hardware notes.  Taking ie(4) as an
> example, there's nothing in the man page, the 6.2 release notes or the
> 6.2 hardware notes to suggest that this device won't be present in
> future releases.
> 

I think that before modules are deprecated that a formal call for users 
and supporters on -announce should be made. maybe someone 
might even put the call on slashdot :-)


>> Now I'll put on my bugmeister hat and say that I'd rather see see effort
>> devoted to clearing up PRs about hardware that is widespread, rather than
>> spending time on obsolete hardware.
> 
> I thoroughly agree.  Pity that the very noisy minority who are loudly
> complaining that 6.x won't run on their laptops but 4.x runs perfectly
> aren't able to assist in moving FreeBSD forwards.
>