Hi there,
I have a question about maintaining NSD2 in Debian. My personal opinion
is that now when lenny is out, it should be dropped from unstable and we
should just provide nsd->nsd3 upgrade path. Any opinions?
Ondrej
Hi Ondřej,
Matthijs is ill, so I'm replying for the moment.
NLnet Labs promises to give a 2 year notice when support ends.
(for the reader: our support program is described
http://nlnetlabs.nl/projects/nsd/support.html)
It was more than 2 years since NSD 3 was announced (5 sep 2006), which
implicitly meant that support for older versions was going to drop.
NSD 2 had its last release a little later (2.3.7, 16 april 2007).
NLnet Labs is no longer providing support for the old NSD 2.x. We also
have not received any support requests for 2.x. Therefore I would
advise to upgrade to nsd3 and not package nsd2 in the new Debian.
Best regards,
Wouter
Ondřej Surý wrote:
W.C.A. Wijngaards wrote:
Hi Wouter,
NLnet Labs promises to give a 2 year notice when support ends.
(for the reader: our support program is described
http://nlnetlabs.nl/projects/nsd/support.html)It was more than 2 years since NSD 3 was announced (5 sep 2006), which
implicitly meant that support for older versions was going to drop.
NSD 2 had its last release a little later (2.3.7, 16 april 2007).NLnet Labs is no longer providing support for the old NSD 2.x. We also
have not received any support requests for 2.x. Therefore I would
advise to upgrade to nsd3 and not package nsd2 in the new Debian.
I'm a little confused here. First you said that NLnet Labs will give a 2
year notice period when support for a particular product will end. I
haven't seen such an announcement about NSD 2. Please do point me to the
relevant announcement in case I missed it.
Additionally, the website also doesn't say anything about not supporting
NSD 2. Therefore, as an NSD 2 user, I have been under the impression all
this time that it is still supported, and am still waiting for the
announcement to say that support for it is ending.
Regards,
Hi Anand,
Anand Buddhdev wrote:
> W.C.A. Wijngaards wrote:
>
> Hi Wouter,
>>> NLnet Labs promises to give a 2 year notice when support ends.
>> (for the reader: our support program is described
>> http://nlnetlabs.nl/projects/nsd/support.html)
>>
>> It was more than 2 years since NSD 3 was announced (5 sep 2006), which
>> implicitly meant that support for older versions was going to drop.
>> NSD 2 had its last release a little later (2.3.7, 16 april 2007).
>>
>> NLnet Labs is no longer providing support for the old NSD 2.x. We
also
>> have not received any support requests for 2.x. Therefore I would
>> advise to upgrade to nsd3 and not package nsd2 in the new Debian.>
> I'm a little confused here. First you said that NLnet Labs will give a 2
> year notice period when support for a particular product will end. I
> haven't seen such an announcement about NSD 2. Please do point me to the
> relevant announcement in case I missed it.
You are correct. NSD support ending is announced 2 years in advance.
For NSD2, the obsolescence of the previous version was implicit with the
release of the new one. In general we try to accommodate bug reports
made with older versions (if we can find the bug, and fix that in the
latest version).
> Additionally, the website also doesn't say anything about not supporting
> NSD 2. Therefore, as an NSD 2 user, I have been under the impression all
> this time that it is still supported, and am still waiting for the
> announcement to say that support for it is ending.
To be honest, NSD 2 support would be very easy right now as there are no
open issues and have been no reports for a very long time. In general,
we do not have the capacity to support many branches of software. We
support the latest versions.
Would you consider moving to NSD 3? If issues appear in NSD 2, the
first response may be to ask you to upgrade to a version that we
actively support (much as if someone found a bug in 3.0.0 we would also
ask them to upgrade to the latest version for bugfixes).
Best regards,
Wouter
I think the honourable way out of this rather unfortunate situation is be to announce that NSD 2.x support stops on March 1, 2011, hope no security issues turn up before then, and add a TODO point to the list for NSD 4: "Send separate mail next day to announce that NSD 3 support ceases two years later".
Wouter Wijngaards writes:
To be honest, NSD 2 support would be very easy right now as there are no open issues and have been no reports for a very long time.
I'm glad to hear that. So don't act against your stated principles. They're good principles, and if following them is cheap and easy anyway, you might as well do it.
Arnt
Let me add a point to that.
Arnt Gulbrandsen writes:
I think the honourable way out of this rather unfortunate situation is be to announce that NSD 2.x support stops on March 1, 2011, hope no security issues turn up before then,
request that everyone upgrade,
and add a TODO point to the list for NSD 4: "Send separate mail next day to announce that NSD 3 support ceases two years later".
Standing by one's principles is very good. Asking people to make it easy is also reasonable.
Arnt
Arnt Gulbrandsen writes:
I think the honourable way out of this rather unfortunate situation is be to announce that NSD 2.x support stops on March 1, 2011, hope no security issues turn up before then,
request that everyone upgrade,
That's exactly what we tell people for openswan (2.4.x vs 2.6.x). If they
want to stay with 2.4.x, which is EOL, then we *only* do paid support.
Standing by one's principles is very good. Asking people to make it easy is also reasonable.
We also make it clear that maintaining two trees takes development time
away from the latest tree, which is in no one's interest, provided the
old tree is stable, just lacking some features. Which seems to be the case
for nsd (and openswan)
Interestingly, the only people who still ask us about openswan-2.4.x are
people running debian. Debian was not sure what our version numbers meant,
and refused to upgrade even the 2.4.x series, despite the fact it was in
bugfix/maintenance mode only.
Paul
Debian is famous for sticking to antiques. NSD 2 should simply be ousted.