Re: HEADS UP: Audit integration into CVS in progress, some tree disruption

On Wed, 2006-Feb-01 19:55:10 -0500, Mike Jakubik wrote:
>Well... While you, me, and other viewers of this list may be fully aware 
>of the situation, some else who is either new to FreeBSD or missed out 
>on this info may try it and possibly be disappointed. Which would ruin 
>their experience and/or opinion of FreeBSD in general. I guess if it 
>does make it in, it would be a good idea to clearly notify the user that 
>it is still experimental, etc..

IMHO, once the API/ABI is stable, there is no reason why it can't be
MFC'd as long as someone is willing to to do the work (including
maintenance).  The advantages are that the code is available to a
larger group of users and therefore will (hopefully) get more testing.
The more testing it gets, the sooner the "experimental" tag can be
removed.  The users for whom the audit framework is important will
mostly not want to run bleeding edge code and so getting audit into
-STABLE (and production quality) is important to this group.

Keep in mind that FreeBSD has shipped for years with utilities and
kernel options that have "use at your own risk" warnings all over
them.  Looking at RELENG_4 LINT (the oldest I have readily to hand):

# NOTE 1: The options, CPU_BTB_EN, CPU_LOOP_EN, CPU_IORT,
# CPU_LOOP_EN and CPU_RSTK_EN should not be used because of CPU bugs.
# These options may crash your system.
...
# Protocol families:
#  Only the INET (Internet) family is officially supported in FreeBSD.
#  Source code for the NS (Xerox Network Service) is provided for amusement
#  value.
...
# Experimental IPsec implementation that uses the kernel crypto
# framework.
...
# NB: The NULL, PORTAL, UMAP and UNION filesystems are known to be
# buggy, and WILL panic your system if you attempt to do anything with
# them.  They are included here as an incentive for some enterprising
# soul to sit down and fix them.
...
# apm: Laptop Advanced Power Management (experimental)
...
# Note that this ACPI support is experimental and it's use may result in
# machine hangs or kernel panics.
...
#       ihfc driver for Cologne Chip ISA chipsets (experimental!)

-- 
Peter Jeremy