Re: Proposal, again: Disable autoload of compat_xyz modules

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

>>> Keeping them enabled for the <1% users interested means keeping
>>> vulnerabilities for the >99% who don't use these features.
>> Are the usage numbers really that extreme?  Where'd you get them?  I
>> didn't think there were any mechanisms in place that would allow
>> tracking compat usage.
> No, there is no strict procedure to monitor compat usage, and there
> never will be.  Maybe it's not <1%, but rather 1.5%; or maybe it's
> 5%, 10%, 15%.

> Who cares, exactly?

The short answer is "anyone who wants NetBSD to be useful".

If it really is only a tiny fraction - under ten people, say - then,
sure, yank it out.  If it's 90%, removing it would lose most of the
userbase, possibly provoke a fork.  15%, 40%, I don't think there is a
hard line between "pull it" and "keep it", and even if there were I'm
not sure it would matter because it appears nobody knows what the
actual use rate is anyway.

> This compat topic has been discussed over and over, and the
> conclusion is systematically that these compat options cause immense
> trouble for little actual use.

Except the "little actual use" is, apparently, nothing but various wild
guesses at the actual proportion.  Based on what I've seen in this
thread, it looks as though the use rate is around 1/2 (two users, two
non-users) - but, of course, that has no statistical validity; the
sample is ludicrously small and entirely self-selected.

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