response 26 of 81:

Aug 10 18:47 UTC 2007

My point is that OpenBSD is not the end-all-be-all of operating systems,
Steve.  We originally went with it because of its supposedly bullet-proof
reputation, but it's proven, again and again, to be less than deserved. 
Frankly, I think FreeBSD would be a better platform.  But, that's my opinion,
and not really relevant to the discussion at hand, which I'd really like to
concentrate on.

response 28 of 81:

Aug 10 19:10 UTC 2007

Steve, the burden is on you to convince us that we *should* upgrade to
4.2-BETA, not for me or anyone else to convince you why we *should not*.
You are the one in departure from established practices, and to whom
practically everyone with an opinion has said, ``that is not a good idea.''
Even the OpenBSD people who's opinions you posted expressed some
reservations and said that 4.1-stable would work fine for us.

As for why I am against this, I've posted that reasoning repeatedly.  But
to recap:

a) The software is in beta for a reason: it is not production ready;
   it will not be officially released for nearly three months.  I do
   not think it is acceptable to run pre-release software on Grex.
b) Delaying now will continue to negatively impact our existing users.
c) There is not a sufficiently compelling reason to go to the beta
   release.  A one-line code change, that we can cherry pick ourselves,
   doesn't cut it.
d) There is a support issue that has remained unaddressed.
e) Given our track record, I think it's unlikely that someone will do
   an upgrade to 4.2-stable once it's finally released.  Thus, we are
   likely to be running on a Beta for a long time.  I do not think that
   is acceptable.

And the other reasons I've posted throughout this thread.

response 30 of 81:

Aug 10 19:13 UTC 2007

(While I was composing #29, more argumentation slipped in via responses
#27 and #28.  Still mystified here...)

response 32 of 81:

Aug 10 19:16 UTC 2007

Given that we are bad about doing upgrades, why then do you think we'll
upgrade to 4.2 once it comes out?

response 34 of 81:

Aug 10 19:19 UTC 2007

Not only that, but if we are bad about doing upgrades, why then should
we delay the upgrade to 4.1 when we have someone ready, willing and able
to do it now?

response 36 of 81:

Aug 10 19:24 UTC 2007

You know, I dislike any discussion that starts with someone pulling someone
out of their hat and saying "here this guy is a big expert and here is what
he says".  I have been, at various times of my life, the indisputable world's
number one expert on a variety of narrow topics, and I can say from personal
experience that experts are, as a rule, full of shit, and their opinions are
just personal opinions like everybody else's.

Now, I don't generally believe in trumpeting my own expertize, because, as
previously mentioned, I don't believe in experts so the whole thing is
fundamentally hypocritical, but for those who love experts, I'd like to say
that on the subject of upgrading Grex, "Hello, I'm the expert."

Though lots of people helped, I was the one who took the lead on upgrading
Grex first to the Sun 4/670, then to the first OpenBSD system, and then all
the upgrades to OpenBSD since then.  The documentation that exists for Grex's
upgrade procedures was written 95% by me.  The last time that someone
other than me upgraded Grex's OS was probably when we moved from the Sun 3
to the Sun 4/260.  I think that was mostly Greg Cronau.

I think STeve's experts are thinking in terms of systems where nearly all the
software is OpenBSD software in a stock configuration.  You upgrade them by
applying the OpenBSD upgrades, and you are done.  Any program you have on the
system are probably Perl scripts or python programs, and they'll work just
fine.

Grex, alas, has a substantial amount of our own custom C code that all needs
to be rebuilt after each upgrade.  We have various strange local
configurations like the suidbin area, that need to be regenerated.
Upgrading Grex is substantially more complex that just installing a new
version of OpenBSD.

We don't do it often, because I hate doing it, and until Dan showed up, we
had no other volunteers.  Maybe he can evolve a faster and more efficient
upgrade procedure and we'll be able to do it more often.  That'd be great.

STeve's expert speaks of upgrading now the 4.2-beta, then when 4.2 is
released, we just apply the diff's and, voila, we have 4.2-stable.  But,
oops, upgrading Grex isn't that easy.  How much of our code will we have
to rebuild after that?  We'll the diffs apply correctly to the programs
we moved to /suidbin instead of leaving them in their normal places?  I
don't know.  Neither does STeve's expert who's never heard of suidbin.

If we are on a -stable release, and a major bug appears, then a patch
get's released.  We give the patch a quite look over to make sure it
isn't trying to patch something we moved to a different place, and we
apply the patch, maybe after some simple mods.

If we are on a beta release, and a major bug appears, then there is no
patch.  I think we need to make our own patch or do a full upgrade to a
newer version of the OS.  Yes, it's possible.  No, it's not terribly
easy, and it's much harder because we run a modified version of OpenBSD.

I can't get hot and bothered about the fact that we will be missing out
on 3 months of improvements to OpenBSD if you go with 4.1-stable.  So
what?  If any of these was a really major security fix, there'd have been a
patch to 4.1 released.  By our standards, only 3 months obsolete counts
as brand spanking new.

In any case, an effort is now underway to buy a new computer.  I expect
that by the time that is ready to go, 4.2-stable will be out.  Or if things
proceed at the usual Grexian pace, 6.7-stable.  That'll be a great
opportunity to upgrade again.  Almost makes me want to not bother upgrading
the current Grex.

As far as I know, there is only one thing besides general ancientness that's
bothering us about the current 3.8 software, that the TCP bug that keeps me
from being able to connect to Grex from my computer.  Rumor has it that the
4.1-stable will fix that.  If you told me we needed 4.2 to fix that, then
I might be temtped, because there is something that we actually need enough
to do something that is going to be as wacky and likely to cause trouble
down the road as upgrading to a Beta release.

response 38 of 81:

Aug 10 19:28 UTC 2007

Many people slipped in.

But we've had this same discussion before every upgrade, and I'm tired of it.

I'd much rather people worked on getting a backup made so the upgrade could
proceed.  I, alas, have more than used up the little time I have available
today.

response 40 of 81:

Aug 10 19:40 UTC 2007

Steve, we're just not that close to the release data.  That's still several
months away.

response 42 of 81:

Aug 10 19:54 UTC 2007

   The official release date is November 1st.  People get early CD's about
mid to late October.  It takes about 5 weeks to get the release masters
ready and get CDs back from the factory.  Assuming October 25th as the date
for early releases, we're looking at September 17th for the cut off date
for 4.2-stable.  Today is August 10th.  Thats one month and one week left
till we could get a copy of the src for 4.2.

   So it isn't several months.  It's five weeks.

response 44 of 81:

Aug 10 20:01 UTC 2007

The *official release* isn't slated to happen until November 1.  What about
an 11th hour change that goes into the `release' as errata?

But that is an academic distinction.  You still haven't clearly articulated
why we absolutely *need* to upgrade to 4.2-BETA.  I'm a software engineer, I
guarantee that I will understand any technical argument you can throw at me:
convince me.

Also, you have not articulated why we shouldn't do an upgrade to 4.1-stable
now, while we have resources to do so, regardless of whether we upgrade to
4.2-BETA at some later point?  You yourself said time was our biggest missing
resource.  I have time now; why should I *not* do an upgrade to 4.1-stable
tomorrow?

Nor have you addressed any of the other concerns that I raised.

If the totality of your argument is, `it's better!' then I will remain
unconvinced.

response 46 of 81:

Aug 10 22:53 UTC 2007

re #29:   John wrote:  

>  I'm having trouble understanding why this issue has
>  generated such heated and lengthy argument.

I'm not.  In my opinion it's not really about the difference
between 4.1 and 4.2-BETA, it's a proxy battle about control
over the system between two participants determined to demonstrate
that they're the alpha geek.  They may not even realize that's
what they're doing, but I'm convinced that's the best explanation
to fit the facts.

Being somewhat inclined in that direction, I used to love a good
technical argument myself.  Then I grew up and realized that unless
there's a critical flaw involved, fewer than 1 in 1000 people truly
give a rat's ass what revision of software their computer is running.

response 48 of 81:

Aug 10 23:55 UTC 2007

Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards finding a solution.
 :-\

If it's any consolation, I'm leaning your way in the actual dispute. 
It's just that I think the whole thing is kind of pointless, except
insofar as it REALLY needs to be established whether STeve retains
the authority to stonewall any plans he doesn't approve of.