Re: Regarding the ULTRIX and OSF1 compats

[Jason Thorpe <thorpej%me.com@localhost>]

> On Mar 16, 2019, at 2:49 PM, Bob Smith <sfmc68%verizon.net@localhost> wrote:
> 
> As a list member for as long as this list has been around, and beta tester for the Vax versions in the 90s I think, (Hey Bilquist!,Mouse) and alpha versions,
> I can attest to Dave's knowledge. His head works rather well.

Indeed, I think we should all maintain civility in this discussion (</me> wags finger at Maxime for his "fat-ass" remark ... I'm not the oldest nor wisest guy around these parts, but I am old/wise enough to know that such ad hominem attacks seldom result in the outcome one is hoping to achieve)...

> Msr Villard, apologies, but half a decade of involvement ain't squat. Are you reviving some skills from our long departed Vax guru? I won't invoke his name, but you could practice his style of comment, both in ferocity and aplomb. The Greater Baltimore area still misses him, and you are not his equal.

...however, just because he's a fresh face in the crowd doesn't mean his position lacks and underlying wisdom.  Ageism cuts both ways, and it's not fair in either instance.

BUT... if you're going to wield that argument... I think it's fair to say that I've been around the block, particularly when it comes to the Alpha port... cgd@ is, of course, the guy who made it happen, but back in the day, Alpha was one of my primary development platforms, and I spent considerable effort improving the Alpha port.  Go ahead, check the logs.

This is all to say -- I've got some skin in this game, and I bring a perspective as to the utility of the code in question.  And I agree *completely* with what Maxime is doing.

Raise your hand if you EVER used COMPAT_OSF1.  (</me> raises hand).  Anyone else?  I can wait...

(I think it's telling that this conversation has been happening on-and-off on port-alpha for several weeks now and literally no one has piped up to say that they're using COMPAT_OSF1/...)

As to the argument "well, hey, maybe people don't read the mailing list!", my response is "That's a real bummer for them, because we're not wizards and can't send them an owl with important announcements scrawled on parchment no matter where they are in the world."  Our system doesn't have any telemetry being fed into Splunk to tell us how much a given feature is being used, or what the most popular Ethernet driver is.  And I can imagine the fury that would result if someone even proposed such a telemetry system.  So, we use what we have -- the mailing lists.  That's why they exist!  Ours is a platform where a little effort on the part of the end-user is basically required in order to inform decisions.  I'm not passing judgement on that either way, just stating a fact.

-- thorpej