Re: AppleTalk status

From: Robert N. M. Watson <rwatson_at_freebsd.org>
Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 17:50:00 +0100
On 25 May 2010, at 17:48, Julian Elischer wrote:

>> I'm working on updating net/netatalk to version 2.1 (or 2.1.1 when
>> that comes out the next couple of days), and I'm wondering what
>> state AppleTalk support is in these days. Is anybody still using
>> it, or would now be the time to make all AppleTalk support in that
>> port optional, and just focus on the file server component?
>> 
>> I haven't used AppleTalk for at least eight years now, and I don't
>> quite see which setting it still would be used in nowadays...
> 
> I did the original port to freeBSD (from a netbsd port from memory)
> I haven't checked recently but it was used by several companies running legacy stuff in some industrial control situations.
> In any case it's good having a working example of another  protocol
> as the world is getting a bit too focused on IP these days
> and having a different protocol in the sources keeps us honest.

FWIW, I have no intention of removing the kernel support for appletalk (or, perhaps more properly, ethertalk). It does want to be changed to use our link layer improvements in 8.x, but what is there today works fine and should continue to work fine for the forseeable future. Virtualizing for VIMAGE will probably take someone a couple of afternoons, and I tentatively plan to do it "at some point" before 9.0.

Robert
Received on Tue May 25 2010 - 14:50:03 UTC

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