[OpenAFS] Re: [OpenAFS-devel] 1.6 and post-1.6 OpenAFS branch management and schedule

[Christopher D. Clausen]

Simon Wilkinson <sxw@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 17 Jun 2010, at 19:45, Christopher D. Clausen wrote:
>> Its fine to not have it enabled by default, but I can't see why one
>> would remove the functionality from the source tree.
>
> Because every different configuration option you have doubles the
> complexity of testing the code. What actually tends to happen is that
> stuff that isn't enabled by default never actually gets tested when
> changes are made, and so ends up rotting. So, these options are dangerous
> both because we _know_ they can cause data loss now and that's only going
> to get worse in the future because nobody developing for the fileserver
> actually tests with them enabled.
>
> We have very limited developer effort available. Reducing the breadth of
> our code significantly improves our ability to add the new features that
> everyone says they want.
>
> My original proposal for both fast-restart and bitmap-later was that we
> should remove the configuration options but retain the code for one
> release cycle and then remove the code entirely in the next cycle. That
> hopefully prevents folk from running them thinking that they're in any
> way supported, but still allows those brave enough to do so some time to
> move over to demand attach.

Ah, ok.  I thought these options were just being removed because people 
thought it was dangerous.  If it is actually a long-term support issue, I am 
fine with the code being removed.

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