Re: Status of revivesa

[buhrow%lothlorien.nfbcal.org@localhost (Brian Buhrow)]

        The point is not whether the new features outweigh the pain of having
to upgrade binaries linked against SA libraries.  The point is that up until
now, NetBSD releases have always supported running older binaries, along
with their binary libraries, without complaint.  Releasing 5.0 without SA
support would violate this tradition in a major way.  Since NetBSD users
would expect this tradition to continue, and since, if they're like me, they
rely on it in order not to have to upgrade certain userland environments
even as the underlying OS moves with the times and the hardware, breaking
this tradition would hurt our standing in the community in a big way that
couldn't be calculated.  I believe NetBSD is a niche OS, but I think it's
used a lot in embeded environments, and my guess is that those
manufacturers who produce those products based on NetBSD like the fact that
binaries continue to work year after year, even as they retool for changes
in hardware.  Other OS projects don't seem to worry much about binary
backward compatibility and it is one of the things that sets NetBSD apart.
Setting that aside would remove that differentiation, and that, is a big
deal!
-Brian
On Sep 26, 10:28pm, Izumi Tsutsui wrote:
} Subject: Re: Status of revivesa
} tls%rek.tjls.com@localhost wrote:
} 
} > On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 09:16:30PM +0900, Izumi Tsutsui wrote:
} > > 
} > > How many users will actually be screwed seriously with SA,
} > > rather than pleased by advantages on other features?
} > 
} > Anyone who naively expects a 3.x or 4.x chroot environment to work.
} > Unfortunately, important things like named were linked to the
} > SA libpthread for *two* major releases...
} 
} I don't ask who is, but asking tradeoff against other new features.
} 
} How many users will require both 5.0 kernel and
} chroot old environments with pthread binaries?
} 
} Why won't they update named while they do their kernels?
} pthread support for named has been disabled in both netbsd-3 and netbsd-4.
} 
} Are chroot environments confirmed working with revivesa? Not yet.
} ---
} Izumi Tsutsui
>-- End of excerpt from Izumi Tsutsui