i think it's not too soon for the bsd community to become less reactionary. (yes, i know that's ironic coming from me.)

https://nomadbsd.org/

i'd like freebsd to be fit for a lot of purposes. a complete OS is one of those that i will use the most. but not the only one for me, and not the only one for the community.

take deep breaths.

re:

John Howie wrote on 2024-05-15 19:04:
FreeBSD (and BSD Unix in general) has a rich history of being a “complete” OS – kernel and userland. If there was really a demand for a minimalist version of FreeBSD, why have people not forked FreeBSD and created it by now? There is also nanobsd, as an option, for those that want minimalist installs (yes, I know it is meant for embedded systems, but it works).

I think we need to stop trying to find solutions for non-existent problems.

*From: *owner-freebsd-...@freebsd.org <owner-freebsd-...@freebsd.org> on behalf of Marek Zarychta <zarych...@plan-b.pwste.edu.pl>
*Date: *Wednesday, May 15, 2024 at 11:19 AM
*To: *freebsd-net@freebsd.org <freebsd-net@freebsd.org>
*Subject: *Re: removing RIP/RIPng (routed/route6d)

Today Michael Sierchio wrote:

    There is an argument to be made that all such components of the
    "base" system should be packages, and managed that way.  That would
    facilitate removal or addition of things like MTAs, Route daemons
    for various protocols, etc.  and permit them to be updated
    independent of the base system.  Too much is included by default in
    Base.

FreeBSD is a comprehensive OS, and most users still do appreciate this feature.

I remember that we had also RCS tools in the base system, they got purged (moved to the ports tree really), most users are fine with it, but for managing single config files RCS is still the best-suited versioning system. We still have ftpd(8), but it was almost removed, there was a strong battle on the mailing list to preserve it. FTP protocol is as old as BSD, but it's still valid and, so far not deprecated. A similar story was with smbfs(5). The same probably applies to RIP/RIPng. What if we would better remove LLVM from the base if the system is bloated ? LLVM needs frequent updates and keeping it in base is far more risky in terms of system security than keeping RIP daemons. Why do we still have odd tools like biff(1) in the base ?

On the other hand, for a significant share of the user base, the more tiny the OS is, the better. The transition to PkgBase should fulfill user needs, especially those, who want a minimalist OS. So please, go ahead and switch to PgkBase if your FreeBSD system contains undesired software.

Cheers

Marek

    On Wed, May 15, 2024 at 1:01 PM John Howie <j...@thehowies.com
    <mailto:j...@thehowies.com>> wrote:

        I use RIP all the time. Removing it would be a pain. What is the
        justification? Moving it to ports is an option, but now we have
        to compile, distribute, and install it.

        Sent from my iPhone

         > On May 15, 2024, at 07:40, Tomek CEDRO <to...@cedro.info
        <mailto:to...@cedro.info>> wrote:
         >
         > On Wed, May 15, 2024 at 4:20 PM Scott
        <uatka3z4z...@thismonkey.com
        <mailto:uatka3z4z...@thismonkey.com>> wrote:
         >>> On Mon, Apr 15, 2024 at 09:49:27PM +0100, Lexi Winter wrote:
         >>> (..)
         >>> i'd like to submit a patch to remove both of these daemons
        from src.  if
         >>> there's some concern that people still want to use the BSD
         >>> implementation of routed/route6d, i'm also willing to
        submit a port such
         >>> as net/freebsd-routed containing the old code, in a similar
        way to how
         >>> the removal of things like window(1) and telnetd(8) were
        handled.
         >>
         >> I use RIPv2 for it's simplicity and small memory and CPU
        requirements.  It
         >> has its place and shouldn't be considered "legacy" despite
        its shortcomings.
         >> It's not uncommon for vendors like Cisco to produce "basic"
        feature sets of
         >> IOS that do not include any link-state protocols.
         >>
         >> Anyway, I'm a user, albeit a small user, of RIP and wouldn't
        object to its
         >> removal from FreeBSD if there were a small footprint
        alternative.  I've used
         >> FRR and VyOS a bit and they are overkill as replacements.
         >>
         >> Your email doesn't justify its removal other than to say you
        are unconvinced
         >> of the value of shipping it.  As a user I definitely see the
        value.  I
         >> understand that there is always a cost to providing code,
        but that wasn't
         >> suggested as a reason.  All APIs, modules, utilities, etc.
        need to regularly
         >> justify their presence in the OS.
         >>
         >> If it must be removed, is there any way to fork the FreeBSD
        routed and
         >> route6d to a port?  Or would that defeat the purpose of
        removing it in the
         >> first place?
         >
         > Yeah, where did that recent trend came to FreeBSD to remove
        perfectly
         > working code??
         >
         > There are more and more ideas in recent times like this.
         >
         > Architectures removal, drivers removal, backward compatibility
         > removal. While basic functions become unstable and
        unreliable. Looks
         > more like diversion and sabotage than progress.
         >
         > If anything is about to be moved out from SRC for a really
        good reason
         > it should be available in ports and not in /dev/null.
         >



--
P Vixie


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