Re: Dates in boot loaders on !x86

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> Except that tells me whether the kernel being booted is recent, not
>> whether the bootloader doing the booting is.
> No.  It is the version in src/sys/sys/param.h. It doesn't have any
> relation to the kernel you are running or booting.

Oh, that kernel version!  That it is of no use for my purposes.

> The point is that it is a non-changing, human readable identifier of
> the source tree that hopefully changes often enough to be able to
> tell two versions apart.

I care about bootloader timestamps when I'm hacking bootloader code and
want to be able to tell the difference between still running the
previous booter or the one I built just a few minutes ago - even if
"the previous booter" is the one I built thirty minutes ago in the same
bootloader-hacking run.  Being able to tell the 6.0 bootloader from the
5.2 bootloader, while perhaps important, is not what I'm talking about
here.

I don't do this often, but when I do there's not much substitute.

>> However, based on the discussion, it sounds as though this is not an
>> issue: [...]
> That depends.  Some platforms dropped them completely.

That sucks.  Well, if portmasters don't mind screwing over people
trying to actually hack on their ports' code, I guess it's their call.

> It is much simpler to consistently drop it.

Simpler?  Certainly.  My point is, it is a regression, a signficant one
for me at least.  If you don't mind crippling people trying to work on
the bootloader, be my guest.  (If I had occasion to work on such a
bootloader, one of the first things I'd do would be to add something
functionally equivalent back, even if just a
manually-changed-when-I-care "hi, I'm not the previous version"
printf.)

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