Perhaps another option - it's not uncommon for a company, like Cloudera or RedHat, to add patches to their distribution for things they want to roll out earlier than the broader community wants them, among other reasons. Companies also often backport newer features to older releases.
Although one would certainly want to limit the extend of the patches. On Jan 30, 2013, at 12:49 PM, dlmar...@comcast.net wrote: > > > > > - Josh has brought up some technical concerns with the patch > > > > - Eric said that he would be fine adding it in 1.5.1 after testing > > > > - Keith suggests that we don't change the public API for this if it is > likely to change > > > > +1 to all of the above. I think it's ok to add portions of a feature as they > mature, but it doesn't make sense to add something that we know is going to > drastically change later. Feature branches are great for experiments. > Regardless of whether somebody wants it, if we deliver it now, then they will > use and be dependent on a new, non-complete, deprecated feature. > > > > Dave > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Keith Turner" <ke...@deenlo.com> > To: dev@accumulo.apache.org > Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2013 11:10:38 AM > Subject: Re: ACCUMULO-958 - Pluggable encryption in walogs > > On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 10:40 AM, Adam Fuchs <afu...@apache.org> wrote: >> Let me attempt to make another argument for why the 958 patch should be >> included in 1.5.0. What this patch represents is not an encryption solution >> for WAL, but an experimental extension point that will be used for building >> an encryption solution as a pluggable module. We need to judge its merit >> based on whether it is a successful experimental extension point or not. >> There are three main reasons for including the patch in 1.5.0: >> 1. Test the performance impact of the null cipher solution (default >> configuration) in all the performance tests we will be running for the > > I do experiments all of the time w/o including half done things in a release. > > Should I include the following in 1.5.0 just so I can experiment with > it? I was working on it got sidetracked and never got back to it. At > this point I am uncertain of its utility. It needs further > experimentation. > > https://github.com/keith-turner/accumulo/tree/ACCUMULO-551 > >> 1.5.0 release. If it causes problems there then we can roll it back. >> 2. Enable the use of this extension after 1.5 is released. External >> experiments have dependencies on this extension point. Without the >> extension point we will have to test with unreleased versions of Accumulo, >> which would be less than ideal. > > Back to ACCUMULO-551 I did experiements with that with not problem w/o > including it in a release. I just created a version of accumulo > called accumulo-551-snapshot so no one would be confused if they > encountered it. What is wrong with the approach? > >> 3. It is not harmful and somebody wants it. The reason for wanting this >> code in is well documented, so you need a very strong reason to throw it >> out. Otherwise you will encourage forking of the project (which would be >> bad). > > Forking over this seems illogical. > > If we leave it in and hide it, then should all of the configuration > properties be removed? > > I would consider the config props to be part of the public API and not > easily modified in the future. Since the props may change as the full > implementation evolves, I think it would make sense to remove them > from the public API. If left, we should modify the config to support > marking the config props as experimental and also modify the code that > generates config documentation. I just want to avoid boxing ourselves > in or having to make things confusing for users. > >> >> Adam >> >> >> >> >> On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 10:09 AM, Eric Newton <eric.new...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Some comments about the comments in ACCUMULO-958: >>> >>> Josh writes: >>> >>> "We still have the ability to review this even after the feature freeze >>> happens, it's just frustrating from my point of view in generating the best >>> 1.5.0 candidate possible (we tend to go through x.y.0 releases pretty darn >>> quick)." >>> >>> John writes: >>> >>> "Yes, but we get stuck on x.y.* for a year or so, so it does become a race >>> to get all the features you want to see in the next year." >>> >>> As Accumulo matures, we will need to start thinking a little more flexibly >>> about what goes into minor releases. We have implemented new (small) >>> features in minor releases before. >>> >>> I would have no problem including ACCUMULO-958 into 1.5.1 after a test >>> phase, and after some basic experience with the feature. However I'm very >>> uncomfortable including this in 1.5.0 because there is not a single test, >>> and no real implementation behind the factory that anyone would use In Real >>> Life. Is this an appropriate API? I have no idea. Comments in the code >>> about the stability of the interface basically admit that the author isn't >>> completely comfortable with it, either. >>> >>> Let's not rush it, and when it is done right, I'm all for putting it into >>> the next release. For now, I would hold back incorporating these changes >>> until they are more fully implemented. After we branch 1.5, commit this to >>> trunk, and back-port it to the 1.5 branch when experience and tests show it >>> is ready to be released. >>> >>> -Eric >>> >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Josh Elser <josh.el...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> All, >>>> >>>> It's been a few days and I haven't seen much chatter at all on >>>> ACCUMULO-958 [1] since the patch was applied. There are a couple of >>>> concerns I have that I definitely want to see addressed before a 1.5.0 >>>> release. >>>> >>>> - It worries me that the provided patch is fail-open (when we can't load >>>> the configured encryption strategies/modules, we don't decrypt anything. >>> I >>>> think for a security-minded database, we should probably be defaulting to >>>> fail-close; but, that brings up an issue, what happens when we can't >>>> encrypt a WAL? Do minor compactions fail gracefully? What does Accumulo >>> do? >>>> >>>> - John said he had been reviewing the patch before he applied it; it >>>> bothers me that there was a version of this patch that had been reviewed >>>> privately for some amount of time when we had already pushed back the >>>> feature freeze date by a week waiting for features that weren't done. >>>> >>>> - The author noted himself with the deprecation of the CryptoModule >>>> interface that "we anticipate changing [this] in non-backwards compatible >>>> ways as we explore requirements for encryption in Accumulo...". This >>> tells >>>> me that implementation of WAL encryption overall hasn't been properly >>>> thought out. >>>> >>>> Given all of this, it gives me great pause to knowingly include this >>> patch >>>> into a 1.5.0 release. I see no signs that this has been truly thought >>> out, >>>> there is no default provided encryption strategy for 1.5.0 with this >>> patch >>>> for the WAL and there is still no support at all for RFile encryption (no >>>> end-to-end Accumulo encryption for a user). All of these issues >>> considered >>>> make me believe that this is an incomplete feature that is not ready for >>> an >>>> Apache Accumulo release. >>>> >>>> Thoughts? >>>> >>>> - Josh >>>> >>>> [1] https://issues.apache.org/**jira/browse/ACCUMULO-958< >>> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ACCUMULO-958> >>>> >>>
