[182177] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: NTP versions in production use?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen Satchell)
Sun Jul 12 00:37:57 2015
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 21:37:53 -0700
From: Stephen Satchell <list@satchell.net>
To: Harlan Stenn <stenn@nwtime.org>, Dovid Bender <dovid@telecurve.com>
In-Reply-To: <55A1DC51.4080101@nwtime.org>
Cc: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>, Sue Graves <sgraves@nwtime.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On 07/11/2015 08:17 PM, Harlan Stenn wrote:
> Thanks, and I'm kinda stunned that folks are running such ancient
> versions of NTP.
>
> https://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Dev/ReleaseTimeline
>
> 4.2.0 was EOL'd in June of 2006, and we've fixed about 3,000 issues in
> the codebase since then.
I used to do a lot of work with embedded software years ago in my
career. What I remember is that when a piece of code was ported to the
embedded product, the only time the port was repeated was when there was
a revenue-impacting issue. So if there was something in those 3,000
issues that would adversely affect the containing product to the point
where it would be reflected in sales, I wouldn't hold your breath.
When the porting process is trivial, then it can be a different story.
But remember that there is a Q/A impact on incorporating the new code
from upstream, so it's the same deal.
If you would like the vendors to update, you need to make a strong case
for doing so.
