Stale NTP in FreeBSD

[John Marshall]

Apologies if this is the wrong mailing list but no list in particular
seems appropriate.

I was disappointed to discover in the 9.2-RC's that ntpd was still
4.2.4p8.  I notice that that same (legacy) ntpd version is in stable/10
and, presumably, likely to end up in the new 10.0 release; so I thought
I should speak up in the hope that it is not yet too late for the
current ntpd stable release to be included.

2006-12-28  ntpd 4.2.4    released
2008-08-21  ntpd 4.2.4p5  released
2008-08-23  FreeBSD imports ntpd 4.2.4p5 to head
2009-01-04  FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p5)
2009-05-04  FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p5)
2009-11-25  FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p5)
2009-12-08  ntpd 4.2.4p8  released
2009-12-12  ntpd 4.2.6    released
2009-12-16  FreeBSD imports ntpd 4.2.4p8 to head
2010-03-23  FreeBSD 7.3-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p5)
2010-07-23  FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p5)
2011-02-24  FreeBSD 7.4-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p5)
2011-02-24  FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p5)
2011-12-24  ntpd 4.2.6p5  released   <------------- current ntpd STABLE
2012-01-10  FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p8)
2012-04-18  FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p5)
2012-12-30  FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p8)
2013-06-09  FreeBSD 8.4-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p5)
2013-09-30  FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE (with ntpd 4.2.4p8)
[soon]      FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE (still with ntpd 4.2.4p8?)

  rwpc15> cd /usr/src && svn cat ^/stable/10/contrib/ntp/version.m4
  m4_define([VERSION_NUMBER],[4.2.4p8])

The version of ntp in FreeBSD has been 'legacy' since December 2009
(almost 4 years ago).  Is there a technical reason why we are stuck at
4.2.4 or is it simply lack of volunteer resources?  Perhaps ntp (and
some of the other imported software in the base) is just not on
anybody's RADAR?  I know I can "use the port" if I want a current
version of ntp, but I can't see the point of shipping superseded stuff
in the base without good reason.

Would it be asking to much for re@ to include, as part of its release
planning, a review of just how current the vendor imports are?  Perhaps
this is already part of the process?

Thank you for listening :-)

-- 
John Marshall
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