On 2018-04-25 07:02, David Sterba wrote:
On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 06:31:20AM +0000, Duncan wrote:
David Sterba posted on Tue, 24 Apr 2018 13:58:57 +0200 as excerpted:
btrfs-progs version 4.16.1 have been released. This is a bugfix
release.
Changes:
* remove obsolete tools: btrfs-debug-tree, btrfs-zero-log,
btrfs-show-super, btrfs-calc-size
Cue the admin-side gripes about developer definitions of micro-upgrade
explicit "bugfix release" that allow disappearance of "obsolete tools".
Arguably such removals can be expected in a "feature release", but
shouldn't surprise unsuspecting admins doing a micro-version upgrade
that's specifically billed as a "bugfix release".
A major version release would be a better time for the removal, I agree
and should have considered that.
However, the tools have been obsoleted for a long time (since 2015 or
2016) so I wonder if the deprecation warnings have been ignored by the
admins all the time.
While I can understand Duncan's point here, I'm inclined to agree with
David, with the further addendum that these are all debug tools, and
therefore no sane sysadmin should be depending on them for production
operation anyway.
(Further support for btrfs being "still stabilizing, not yet fully stable
and mature." But development mode habits need to end /sometime/, if
stability is indeed a goal.)
What happened here was a bad release management decision, a minor one in
my oppinion but I hear your complaint and will keep that in mind for
future releases.
Do you really want to use that to perpetuate the 'still stabilizing and
not mature' claim? If you expect 0 bugs and essentially no other visible
problems, than I don't think you should use linux. Or wait until it's
fully stable, whatever that means.
I think you mean 'I don't think you should use computers', given that
other platforms are just as bad in slightly different ways.
In terms of features, btrfs is not done and will be actively developed
and maintained. Bugs will be found, reported and fixed, new features
will add more code that will have to be stabilized over time. This is
how the entire linux kernel evolves.
The focus in recent releases has been on cleanups and refactoring,
besides bugfixes. No big feature has been merged, to some disappointment
of developers and users, but this is namely to minimize the fallout of
new code that does not have enough review and testing. My target is to
do slow and steady incremental changes with no regressions.
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