Re: ipfilter(4) needs maintainer

On 19 Apr 2013 10:46, "David Demelier" <demelier.david_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2013/4/14 Gary Palmer <gpalmer_at_freebsd.org>:
> > On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 09:48:33AM -0600, Warren Block wrote:
> >> Is it possible to move ipfilter into a port?
> >
> > That may work short term, but the ENOMAINTAINER problem will quickly
creep
> > up again as kernel APIs change.  If the author has lost interest in
> > maintaining the FreeBSD port of ipfilter then unless someone steps
forward
> > to carry on the work, I don't see much of a future for ipfilter in
> > FreeBSD
> >
> > Do we honestly need three packet filters?
> >
>
> No, for me only one should be present. I completely understand that
> some users still use IPFilter and IPFW but why providing three packet
> filters?
>
> The answer should be: use one and document only one. If at the
> beginning we started documenting only one all users should have used
> the only one present. Now we really need to remove the ancestral
> ipfilter and tell people switching to pf(4).
>
> Everything in life change, if we need to maintain all code from the
> past we will have a lot of compat code that pollute the full source
> tree and we will never improve the code just because of old bits

These so called "old bits" are both maintained, and have different
strengths.

Removing dead unmaintained code yes, but having choice makes transition
easier from other OSes; the fewer parts to change at a time, the better.

Chris