Re: DHCP server in base

On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 11:36 AM, Doug Barton <dougb_at_freebsd.org> wrote:
> On 9/10/2010 9:54 AM, David DEMELIER wrote:
>> And what about bind too?
>
> As I've said many times, I'm ready to have it out when there is consensus to
> do so. The usual discussion goes like this:
>
> 1. Get BIND out of the base!
> 2. If we remove it, the command line tools (dig, host, nslookup) go with it.
> 3. Oh, well, we like those, so keep them, but get rid of the rest!
> 4. BIND is library based, so 90% of the work to make the command line tools
> is building the libs, after which building the server and its accessories is
> trivial work.
> 5. Oh, well, then make knobs to disable the server!
> 6. That's already done.
> 7. Oh, well, never mind then *mumble mumble*

Possibly off-topic for this particular thread, but the above reminded
me of what DragonflyBSD just went through, as they removed BIND from
their base install:  importing a smaller codeset that provides the
same functionality as the BIND tools[1].

However, that may or may not be a net gain, as then you need someone
to maintain those non-BIND tools.

But, if one looks at the Perl situation when it was removed from base,
couldn't one remove BIND, but have the package listed as mandatory
install, the way Perl was for awhile (or maybe still is)?

This is also something that DragonflyBSD does, using pkgsrc packages
for things they want installed by default, but that they don't want to
maintain as part of their source tree.

Of course, then you have to train everyone to use /usr/local/etc/named
instead of /etc/named.  :)  (But, it's that what major version updates
and .0 releases are for?)

[1] http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/submit/2010-03/msg00003.html

-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwcash_at_gmail.com