[2054] in NetBSD-Development
[tibbetts@MIT.EDU: Re: Prototype desupport announcement]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Hawkinson)
Mon May 28 19:27:28 2001
Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 19:26:15 -0400
From: John Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
To: netbsd-dev@MIT.EDU
Message-ID: <20010528192615.L11216@multics.mit.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Richard and I discussed this orally before he sent this message
(netbsd-dev cc omitted accidently) and I agreed that his analysis
was reasonable.
--jhawk
----- Forwarded message from Richard Tibbetts <tibbetts@MIT.EDU> -----
Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 19:24:37 -0400
From: Richard Tibbetts <tibbetts@MIT.EDU>
To: John Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Prototype desupport announcement
User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.12-current-20001213i
In-Reply-To: <200105281634.MAA28811@multics.mit.edu>; from jhawk@MIT.EDU on Mon, May 28, 2001 at 12:34:48PM -0400
Ok. I incorporated all the changes except the statement about the
system packs being kept around because I thought it would only
encourage people to keep running machines who shouldn't. Anyone who
should keep running an 8.2 machine already knows that we won't be
deleting the packs. I will be sending out this announcement
momentarily.
tibbetts
On Mon, May 28, 2001 at 12:34:48PM -0400, John Hawkinson wrote:
> Hi, Richard. Sorry for the delay.
>
> > SIPB NetBSD-Athena 8.2, based on NetBSD 1.3.3, is being officially
> > desupported by SIPB. This means that locker software may no longer be
> > built for NetBSD, and that patch releases of NetBSD-Athena will no
> > longer be made.
>
> I would stress: "Future security holes and known vulnerabilities will
> not be fixed, nor will announcements of them be made."
>
> I'd scope the NetBSD 1.3.3 release to give an idea of how old it was,
> perhaps by adding "(23 Dec 1998)" after it; that's the date that 1.3.3
> was relased. 8.2.3 for NetBSD was released by Nathan on 26 Jan 1999. Either
> of these dates would be good to have there.
>
> I think we should also make it clear what happens to the system packs.
> I would say, "We expect to maintain the system packs in afs
> (/afs/sipb.mit.edu/system/i386_nbsd1/) for the forseeable future."
> I'm tempted to include verbiage like "including the coming decade," but
> that might be excessive and "forseeable future" probably covers it.
>
> In between this paragraph and the next one, I would include some
> justification; as it reads now, I must say that the question arises
> is "Why?".
>
> "We are desupporting SIPB NetBSD-Athena as a formal step to
> acknowledging that no work has been done the project recently, and the
> age of the software installed is sufficiently old as to be not
> conducive to productivity."
>
> OK, that sounds dumb and stilted. But I think the sentiment is important.
> I leave it to your discretion ;-)
>
> > At the present time SIPB does not have an updated release of
> > NetBSD-Athena, though there are plans for a future release based on a
> > more current version of Athena and NetBSD. When the new release is
> > available, mail will be sent to netbsd-announce.
>
> I thought about suggesting a time-frame be here for clarity,
> but the time-frame intended is "Summer" at this point, and so that
> would only serve to commit without adding anything.
>
> I also thought about making a comment about how I expect this version
> will be more dependant on Linux emulation for locker software, but
> again I think it's easier to omit that.
>
> > We suggest that current NetBSD-Athena users install Linux-Athena 8.4.
> > Linux-Athena, based on Redhat 6.2 Linux, is an up to date and
>
> s/up to date/up-to-date/
>
> > Information Systems supported version of Athena. It is the same
>
> Is that really true, though? Oh, it's up-to-date Athena, not
> up-to-date Linux ;-) I'd s/Information Systems/MIT &/.
>
> > version of Athena running on the Dell machines in the clusters. SIPB
> > has made available an installer for Linux-Athena which will work on a
> > wide variety of hardware configurations. Before installing, any data
> > stored on the local NetBSD-Athena machine should be backed up. If data
> > is not backed up, extreme care should be taken when partitioning the
> > disk for Linux-Athena. For more information and instructions on
> > installing Linux-Athena, see <URL COMING FOR HERE>
> >
> > We hope that your experience with NetBSD-Athena has been a good one.
> > If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact SIPB at
> > x3-7788 or sipb@mit.edu or netbsd-help@mit.edu
>
> I think ti's a bad idea to give multiple undifferentiated contact
> email addresses; also netbsd-help is for user questions directed at
> develoeprs and users, but not really good as an implied private
> contact address for developers. Since the phone tends to generate
> clueless people unable to answer specific issues, I would rephrase to:
>
> If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact the
> SIPB NetBSD development group as <netbsd-dev@mit.edu>, or the SIPB
> more generally at <sipb@mit.edu> or x3-7788.
>
> --jhawk
----- End forwarded message -----
