Hello, Justin, thanks for your reply.
Examples: opensuse dropped smbfs package some time ago, and this done silently, when you try to use smbfs... nothing, no information why, what should user do. losetup worked perfectly well in 10.2, after upgrade user is supposed to set from scratch her/his configuration to make things work. Why doesn't cifs work?
I have no clue, because whatever I do, it always shows the same error. Quite a lot people have the same problem.
Is there a bugzilla.novell.com bug about this?
Cifs or smbfs? Former -- I would rather look at cifs reporting system, the latter one, yes.
Basically.. a buggy program isn't an excuse to keep an older unmaintained software around. The goal should be to make its replacement work.
Of course -- but what to do between, here (*)? [ time ] old package removed --> system not working (*) --> newer version works
If there is a case it doesn't work, file a bug about it and someone will fix it.
I do this.
a) let's say user works with OS X.Y with package P installed older than the basic package from this OS version (example opensuse 10.2 and cups 1.1) -- do not touch such packages! it is clear that user intentionally downgraded this package to work with it, it was her/his will so do not force upgrade of such packages openSUSE would have to ship a database of every openSUSE version / package version combination in order for this to work.
No, no :-) Note, that the older package is already installed in the system (with broken dependencies already). Take a look at the cups example -- I have it installed already, I don't need it on the disc, I want the installer won't remove it.
Even then, not very safe for security reasons, et. al.
If it is installed, it is unsecure already.
b) dropping software (like smbfs (*)) -- provide fake packages (I already reported this idea), so when user tries to use it explain what she/he should do with it b.1) however this example (*) shows a bad judgement -- I think it is better to provide unmaintained code to help users, than to remove such software and make things worse for users (cifs does not work so well) And who do you blame when the unmaintained package has a security bug that allows someone to rootkit you, and it happens?
Me. I saw a warning "unmaintained software", right? I had a choice.
Do you expect Novell to fix a security problem in an unmaintained piece of software that isn't even shipped in the supported versions?
Not at all. Unmaintained software is unmaintained software, I understand it. But at least I can install it and do my work.
But a bug report needs to be submitted so that someone can look at it and figure out why it doesn't work.
Yes, I post bug/wish reports :-) But when the hardware matters usually it is a dead end (because developers do not have what I have, so reports are closed as worksforme or similar).
It matters to us all. But backwards compatibility for the sake of backwards compatibility is a bad thing.
Hmm, I don't agree with that (entirely). There should be continuous link between previous version and newer version. Nothing like "your system does not work, use google". I mentioned possible solutions, they are not perfect, but I think it is the place to discuss how to best solve the problem. Thank you for reading :-), have a nice day, bye -- Maciej Pilichowski --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org