Subject: Re: Removing compat/aout
To: Jaromir Dolecek <jdolecek@netbsd.org>
From: Simon J. Gerraty <sjg@crufty.net>
List: tech-kern
Date: 03/20/2002 22:12:00
>> It's off by default, isn't it?

>Yep. It's also not maintained and broken.

>PRs:

>kern/7931: COMPAT_AOUT kernel option is dependent on COMPAT_13 and other COMPAT_* options.   It shouldn't be.
>kern/8111: compat/aout causes lossage with LKM syscalls
>kern/8662: COMPAT_AOUT wrecks bsdi compat

None of those sound like anything that would bother me.
I use COMPAT_13, I don't use LKM's or any bsdi binaries (not since we
broke bsdi compatibility back in 1.0 -> 1.1 timeframe which killed the
only commercial s/w I've ever run on this box :-)

You speak of bulk building pkgsrc as though every box has a fast cpu or
people have nothing better to do than re-build programs that work.
Without exception, when I need to build/update something in pkgsrc
its because I needed it 5 minutes ago - not in 12-24 hours.

Now I'm not saying don't cleanup - but just because you don't have 
386bsd binaries laying around that once in a blue moon you need to use,
does not make that true for everyone else.

Part of the reason my main server is still running 1.4.x is I can't
imagine finding the time it would take to upgrade it to 1.5 let alone
1.6 with all the collateral damage that might ensue. (My other 
netbsd boxes here are sparc's running 1.5.x or -current).
I'm afraid you're not making me feel any better about upgrading :-)

I expect I'll eventually by a new machine and run 1.6 on that
but I'd still like it to be able to run those 386bsd binaries.

Thanks
--sjg