Re: Disabling COMPAT_FREEBSD4/5/6/7/9 as a default kernel option

Am 2019-05-27 15:55, schrieb voidanix_at_420blaze.it:
> Hello,
> I wanted to discuss about bug 231768 a bit: it is about keeping
> COMPAT_FREEBSD4/5/6/7/9 on by default in the kernel configs.
> 
> The patch attached for the bug is for disabling these options by
> default, following a few reasons which I'm going to list here:
>     - Keeping support for deprecated libraries isn't exactly the best
> we could do to avoid security issues (if there are any) as I'm sure
> nobody wants to spend that much time maintaining such stuff (it's
> enough to think about misc/compat4x in the ports tree: that version of
> FreeBSD was released on March 2000 and keeping 19 years old libraries
> around isn't ideal)
>     - Devs should get track of time and realize that developing
> software using unsupported libraries is NOT something that you should
> do
>     - Only a tiny fraction of the ports need COMPAT_FREEBSD9 or older:
> if the software won't compile without the legacy components (and has a
> replacement of some kind), considering removal wouldn't be a bad idea
>     - This is on by default: most users don't care or don't use
> binaries that old
> 
> I don't see any practical reason to keep these options on by default,
> but I do appreciate any sort of input regarding this issue.


I have a 32bit FreeBSD 6 binary that I'll need for a bit until the 
department who is technically responsible for the service gets around 
redoing that service.