[gentoo-dev] Re: openrc: oldnet vs newnet

[Duncan]

William Hubbs posted on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 22:03:54 -0500 as excerpted:

> [ Duncan wrote...]

>> However, if we keep newnet around as a masked USE flag until it's no
>> longer worth continuing, it'll give people already using it time to
>> switch back, and/or to build up their own site scripts as workarounds,
>> as newnet gradually gets more and more stale and broken.
>
>  It won't be "masked", it just won't be the default setup, and you will
>  have to do some work that will not be documented to turn it on.

I had seen some suggestions of masking it, and while it hadn't been fully 
discussed, that made sense to me as a USE flag to mask by default, to make 
it clear that its use was discouraged.

And with no documentation and with someone else pointing out that in 
practice, arch-testers are likely to test only one or the other, and with 
oldnet the default it'll be oldnet, realistically, support for it in any 
of the network packages beyond openrc itself, is going to be somewhat 
iffy.  As such, IMO discouraging usage, upto and including masking the 
newnet USE flag, does make some sense, while allowing those who are 
already using it some time to gracefully find other solutions, or create 
their own, starting with copying the existing newnet scripts if desired.

But that can certainly be debated, and arguably, each arch team and 
optional network package could make that decision on their own, deciding 
to support and test both ways, if desired.  I just think it's more work to 
support /properly/ than it's worth, in which case, masking the USE flag 
seems a reasonable way to communicate its unsupported status.

>> Finally, I'm not sure it absolutely needs it, but for clarity-sake and
>> to avoid second-guessing and debate continuing long past the point of
>> usefulness, I believe a council vote on the issue is appropriate.

>  If we keep oldnet as the default, there is nothing for the council to
>  vote on as far as I can see, because stable users are covered in the
>  migration guide at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/openrc-migration.xml.
>  If they follow that path, there is nothing special they need to do
>  outside of that, so there isn't any affect.

Good point.  I had forgotten to take the current status of oldnet-only 
support into account, and was thinking that was the best way to settle the 
question when the inevitable complaints came.  It still might be useful if 
someone involved wants some CYA, but as you point out, since newnet was 
never really supported, specifically /not/ supporting it isn't really a 
change of status, so no council vote actually needed. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman