Subject: Re: "supported"
To: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis@mcmanis.com>
From: Michael Kukat <port-vax@camaronet.de>
List: port-vax
Date: 05/13/2000 17:34:43
Hi !

On Sat, 13 May 2000, Chuck McManis wrote:
> >I wrote:
> > > As you can tell, the 4000/200 isn't yet actually supported by NetBSD,
> 
> At 03:18 PM 5/8/00 -0400, Jon Lindgren wrote:
> >The stuff Michael worked on works _excellently_ for my 4000/200s.
> 
> Re-reading this thread (I just got home so I had to re-fetch all my mail) 
> it occurred to me that we need a new term, especially for helping newbies 
> on this list. When I say something is "supported" by NetBSD then I'm 
> saying, "It is supported by the currently official release of NetBSD" which 
> happens to be 1.4.2. If I say "You can make NetBSD work on that." then it 
> means that jumping through the hoops necessary to get a -current kernel and 
> userland on your system will probably result in a working system.
> 
> Neither of these say anything about whether or not someone is actively (and 
> effectively) trying to make it work on a particular platform.
> 
> So I never intend any slight or offense when I say it isn't "supported" I 
> just mean that it will won't be an "out of the box" sort of experience for 
> getting things running.

Very good idea. We alternatively could change the list of supported platforms
a bit, maybe a table with 3 rows, the system itself, the state "release" and
the state "-current" for the support of the machine. If it's just new, it
appears in the list of supported platforms now. This is a bit confusing, the
newbies might think "fine, i get this 1.4.2 and put it on my disk", then there
are the questions we all know here. It might be much better, if everybody could
see, that the machine is in progress, maybe even finished, but not in the
release, so there is something to do, maybe just get a -current kernel and
booter.

...Michael

-- 
 Michael@camaronet.de, Rottweil/Germany, http://www.camaronet.de
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