netatm removal warning

[Robert Watson]

Dear all,

This is another of those boring e-mails about kernel subsystems that still 
require Giant.  Sorry about that!

As previously published, netatm is a non-MPSAFE protocol stack largely 
superseded by our two other ATM stacks, netnatm and the netgraph/atm (both 
MPSAFE).  netatm is currently non-functional and uncompileable because it 
depends on the Giant compatibility shims for the protocol stack, which were 
removed in FreeBSD 7.0.  We left the code in place in case to make it easier 
for any interested third parties to distribute patches against it (in 
particular, patches to make it MPSAFE).

The current plan is that we will remove the netatm code from HEAD and RELENG_7 
before FreeBSD 7.1.  A specific schedue for 7.1 hasn't been published yet, but 
in order to give plenty of warning, here's the proposed netatm removal 
schedule:

10 March 2008			E-mail warning to arch@/net@
10 April 2008			E-mail warning to arch@/net@
10 May 2008			Removal of netatm from HEAD
20 May 2008			Removal of netatm from RELENG_7

Obviously, netatm will remain in the revision control history should anyone 
wish to ressurect it after that date.  However, I suspect that those 
interested in ATM on FreeBSD have long since been using Harti's netgraph ATM 
framework.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge