Who was the mental genius

[Paul Schmehl]

--On June 5, 2014 at 11:50:38 PM +0200 Guido Falsi <mad at madpilot.net> wrote:

> On 06/05/14 23:43, Paul Schmehl wrote:
>> --On June 5, 2014 at 11:18:31 PM +0200 "A.J. 'Fonz' van Werven"
>> <freebsd at skysmurf.nl> wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Schmehl wrote:
>>>
>>>> That decided it was a good idea to completely break ports to force
>>>> people to upgrade?  You couldn't come up with a warning system instead
>>>> of outright breaking ports?  The idiots are apparently running the
>>>> asylum.  {{sigh}}
>>>
>>> It might help to know exactly what you're talking about... What is it
>>> that
>>> broke?
>>>
>>
>> The change to make that causes this when you run pkg commands or try to
>> build ports:
>>
>> Unknown modifier 't'
>>
>> It was done deliberately to break ports so that people would be forced
>> to upgrade to a supported version.
>>
>> <https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=46291>
>
> No it was not done "deliberately"
>
> Newer freebsd version moved to a newer make utility, and support for the
> old one has been dropped after support for all old releases containing
> it was ceased.
>

So they dropped the support accidentally?  Is this really the time to argue 
semantics?

> Which releases are supported and for how long is well known, and
> published in here when a new release is published:
>
> http://www.freebsd.org/security/security.html#sup
>
> The updates are free, as in "no payment needed". What's keeping you from
> performing a binary update of the base system every year or so?
>

I have two hosts on the internet for which the backup system failed.  I 
didn't catch it right away, so now I'm several days behind on backups.  I 
need to install a new system, but it requires ports I don't yet have 
installed.  So now I have two options; upgrade with my fingers crossed and 
hope it works or scramble to find some way to backup before I upgrade just 
in case the upgrade fails.

> Running such an old system as any of the unsupported releases is also
> most probably exposing you to security vulnerabilities.
>

First of all, 8.3 is not an old system.  Secondly, you used to be able to 
run "old" systems for a long time after support was dropped without 
encountering issues like this.  Finally, I'm a port maintainer of a fair 
number of ports, so FreeBSD isn't free for me.  I put a lot of time into it.

When such a drastic change is made, it should be well advertised in advance 
(think the pkgng announcement you get every time you install a port) and 
not implemented in such a disruptive manner.  It's clear from the forum 
announcement that I linked to that I was not the only one caught by 
surprise and that it didn't even work on supported versions when the change 
was first implemented.

> Sometimes to change things you need to break compatibility, the project
> did wait till it was coherent with what was promised before doing this.
>

What you call "the project" is made up of people.  SOMEONE should be 
thinking through the impact on end users and helping to plan such major 
transitions in a way that's least disruptive IF you want the system to 
remain viable.

Perhaps this is part of the reason adoption of FreeBSD has dropped so 
dramatically over the years.  I'm retiring in 18 months.  When I leave, the 
last FreeBSD system goes with me.  No one is even interested in learning it 
any more.  FreeBSD used to rule the web.  Now it's Linux.  There's a lesson 
in there for those that are listening, but apparently "the project" is not. 
Which is sad, because FreeBSD, IMNSHO, is a very good OS.

There's no need to respond to this.  I'm just venting.  And clearly my 
opinion doesn't matter anyway.

Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst
As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions
are my own and not those of my employer.
*******************************************
"It is as useless to argue with those who have
renounced the use of reason as to administer
medication to the dead." Thomas Jefferson
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very
intelligent person could believe in them." George Orwell