Who was the mental genius

[Paul Schmehl]

--On June 6, 2014 at 10:51:04 AM +0200 Michael Gmelin <grembo at freebsd.org> 
wrote:

>
>
>> On 06 Jun 2014, at 10:22, John Marino <freebsd.contact at marino.st> wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/6/2014 10:18, Alfred Perlstein wrote:
>>> Sure, but really a couple of lines to warn people and wave them towards
>>> next steps is probably advisable next time.
>>
>> Maybe we can alter the "uname -a" string to show the EOL so that every
>> time the machine boots you see it on top of the MOTD.
>>
>> :)
>>
>> Of course, that won't help for the turn-on-and-forget servers with
>> uptime measured in years...
>>
>> As a serious questions, where should such a "you have X months/days
>> remaining before server is EOL, update before then" messages pop up?
>> weekly cron messages sent to root?
>
> periodic/security/450-check_eol ?(info if < 90 days left, error if past
> eol)
>

EOL notification is not the problem.  The problem is breaking ports at EOL. 
That's a special circumstance and begs for notification.  This isn't rocket 
science.

For at least two months now this notification has been popping up every 
time I work on ports.

/!\ WARNING /!\
pkg_install EOL is scheduled for 2014-09-01. Please consider migrating to 
pkgng
http://blogs.freebsdish.org/portmgr/2014/02/03/time-to-bid-farewell-to-the-old-pkg_-tools/
If you do not want to see this message again set 
NO_WARNING_PKG_INSTALL_EOL=yes in your make.conf

Do you think I would miss the 9/1 deadline?  Not a chance.  But the advance 
warning gives me time to plan the change when it's convenient for me.

This change has me scrambling to adapt.  Granted, it only took me a few 
minutes to figure out what to do, but not everyone has the background and 
experience to do that.  Some will simply panic.  Others will switch to 
Linux.

That doesn't seem like a goal FreeBSD should support.

-- 
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