From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from imap.thunk.org (imap.thunk.org [IPv6:2600:3c02::f03c:91ff:fe96:be03]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "imap.thunk.org", Issuer "CAcert Class 3 Root" (verified OK)) by huchra.bufferbloat.net (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BEBB421F1EC for ; Sun, 12 Jan 2014 19:14:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from root (helo=closure.thunk.org) by imap.thunk.org with local-esmtp (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1W2Xys-0005cD-V2; Mon, 13 Jan 2014 03:14:27 +0000 Received: by closure.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 07A91580371; Sun, 12 Jan 2014 22:14:26 -0500 (EST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=simple/simple; d=thunk.org; s=mail; t=1389582866; bh=ObDM/W+4fZgvqHj3ObYkIWSfm03lWMhA1jQBNN7/Tpg=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=AD4zP90eQtGrpe148oUY5D2QUXqLkyxhfyxRzqEMhf6w5cfr7LsAl4iNb3mxsqLfG 3vdnhxpRBDw8d1q65vCO+ZKYQyzxyAgcWQTJDqF+0Wp+loHRPGt6zEbeKWFbck/1Q3 qZcvkJUjQ/JiCUHKuxii3XAXs/JLhpnlImtyuyFw= Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 22:14:25 -0500 From: Theodore Ts'o To: David Lang Message-ID: <20140113031425.GA18029@thunk.org> References: <3BF82F93-07EC-44F8-AF98-2FD156A9A43F@gmail.com> <9EA0DCA1-79CF-48EF-9864-A51807F331B5@gmx.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@thunk.org X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on imap.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Cc: cerowrt-devel Subject: Re: [Cerowrt-devel] Perfection vs. Good Enough X-BeenThere: cerowrt-devel@lists.bufferbloat.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.13 Precedence: list List-Id: Development issues regarding the cerowrt test router project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 03:14:51 -0000 On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 04:10:17PM -0800, David Lang wrote: > > the question boils down to > > compared to stock firmware, > > how much of a beneifit is openwrt trunk (and how risky) "how risky" is I think the biggest question. You can always make things better. But it seems pretty clear the current version is better than the last stable version, in terms of benefits, right? So the question is, are people confident that it is more reliable, and handles various corner cases that users might have in their homes, better than the last stable version? If it is, then we should do a stable release. Something that might be worth considering is something akin to Debian "testing". If a development release has gone for more than a week without having any release critical bugs filed against it, promote it to testing. There will be people like me who aren't willing to run the development branch on their home router, especially if so often it ends up taking down their home infrastructure completely. As a result, I'm currently stuck on a stable release which is almost a year old at this point. I'm not willing to take a development release, because of the potential of instabilities, but I *am* willing to try out a testing release --- especially if I'm given reassurances that if I take a backup snapshot of my config files, I will be able to roll back to the last stable release, or a previous testing release, and basic stuff such as firewall rules and DHCP MAC address to IP address static assignments will be preserved. As long as people understand what risks and shortcomings are with respect to rolling forward from a previous stable or testing release, to a newer testing release, and what the shortcomings are with rolling back to an earlier release while preserving their configuration information, I suspect you'll find a much larger pool of people who are willing to test. Or if I know that I'm going to have to type in all of my configuration in from scratch, that's might also be fine --- then I'll know to wait until have an hour or two, just in case I have to keypunch in all of the Cerowrt config by hand. (I know about the backup function; I just don't know how reliable it is across different versions.) Right now, one of the reasons why I havne't gone to the development release is because I don't know what the worst case situation will be if everything goes south and my home environment goes down for the count. Regards, - Ted