AppleTalk

[Maxime Villard <max%m00nbsd.net@localhost>]

I've had a conversation with core@ about the removal of our kernel AppleTalk
code, and I was asked to send a mail here to give people a chance to comment.

In NetBSD we have a kernel implementation of AppleTalk, in sys/netatalk/. This
code provides a user API (AF_APPLETALK, sockaddr_at etc.), that userland tools
can use to create sockets.

Our kernel netatalk has not been maintained in years, is grossly not MP-safe
(global variables), and I already found a bug that could be triggered even
when no AppleTalk interface was configured [1].

The userland 'netatalk' package, which we do have in pkgsrc, offers the same
functionalities as our kernel netatalk code. This package is well maintained
- the last release was less than a year ago -, well documented, and does not
depend on any kernel netatalk code.

The other BSDs already removed their netatalk/ several years ago, because it
is a burden to maintain, and the user package offers the same features without
it.

Therefore, our kernel netatalk code is a good candidate for removal.

Maxime

[1] http://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2017/12/09/msg090331.html