Re: [RFC] dropping support for ancient versions of curl
- From
Todd Zullinger <tmz@pobox.com>
- Date
- Apr 6, 2017, 01:16 UTC
- Message-ID
- <20170406011610.GF25542@zaya.teonanacatl.net>
- In-Reply-To
- <20170406005301.4vmjkiu6qkj3g276@genre.crustytoothpaste.net>
brian m. carlson wrote:
Show 40 quoted lines
> On Wed, Apr 05, 2017 at 12:51:38PM +0200, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 11:33 AM, Tom G. Christensen <tgc@jupiterrise.com> wrote:
>> Whoah. So my assumption in
>> <CACBZZX78oKU5HuBEqb9qLy7--wcwhC_mW6x7Q+tB4suxohSCsQ@mail.gmail.com>
>> that nobody was compiling this & thus not reporting failures was
>> false. Rather there's an entire community & distribution mechanism
>> around patching git for older EL versions, but the patches aren't
>> making it upstream.
>>
>> $ grep -h -e ^Subject -e ^Date *patch
>> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:34:11 +0200
>> Subject: [PATCH 1/7] Make NO_PERL_MAKEMAKER behave more like
>> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 11:02:02 +0200
>> Subject: [PATCH 2/7] Install man pages when NO_PERL_MAKEMAKER is used
>> Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 13:42:50 +0200
>> Subject: [PATCH 3/7] Allow svnrdump_sim.py to be used with Python 2.2
>> Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2016 09:31:56 +0100
>> Subject: [PATCH 4/7] Handle missing HTTP_CONNECTCODE in curl < 7.10.7
>> Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 10:32:51 +0200
>> Subject: [PATCH 5/7] Add support for gnupg < 1.4
>> Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 18:15:13 +0200
>> Subject: [PATCH 6/7] Handle missing CURLINFO_SSL_DATA_{IN,OUT}
>> Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 18:26:54 +0200
>> Subject: [PATCH 7/7] Do not use curl_easy_strerror with curl < 7.12.0
>> Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 21:24:44 -0500
>> Subject: [PATCH] Restore vc-git.el for basic compatibility on EL-5
>> Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:03:36 -0400
>> Subject: [PATCH] git-cvsimport: Ignore cvsps-2.2b1 Branches: output
>>
>>> Patches can be found in the src.rpm, though I can also post them here as
>>> patch series, they cover more than just curl.
>>>
>>> I don't use the el3 and el4 versions much any more and el5 use will also
>>> drop of now as I'm busy converting machines from el5 to el7.
>>
>> It would be great to have them on-list, as far as I can tell they were
>> never submitted? Is there some time/administrative reason for why
>> you're not submitting them? Some of these are many years old, it would
>> be great to have them on-list for wider review & included so vanilla
>> git works on these platforms.The vc-git.el patch which I think came from the Fedora/EPEL package for EL-5 was only intended to restore functionality to support the older emacs on EL-5. Now that EL-5 is EOL, it can (thankfully, IMO) die off.
The git-csvimport patch looks to be in the same category (assuming it was similar to what we included in the EPEL packages for EL-5 support). It was only needed (and applied) to support older systems and wasn't something worth carrying upstream.
> I'm very opposed to accepting patches for operating systems that are no > longer security supported. Having insecure systems directly or > indirectly connected to the Internet is a very bad thing, and we > shouldn't make it easier for people who want to do that.
I concur. I (or we, the Fedora/EPEL package maintainers for git) have tried to ensure that the packages for the latest Fedora release build cleanly for all supported Fedora and EL releases. I think that is useful for those who use CentOS/RHEL and still want to have a recent git build.
I don't see any benefit in making it easier for folks to run systems that are no longer receiving updates for critical security issues. It's surely hard enough to support EL-6 as it ages. ;)
> CentOS 6 and 7 are still in use and security supported, and I think > we should support them. CentOS 5 is EOL, although RHEL 5 is still > supported in some cases. RHEL 4 and earlier are definitely out of > support and we shouldn't support or consider them further.
I know RHEL 5 has some extended support from Red Hat, but EPEL-5 is dead. So from my perspective, supporting EL-5 isn't worth the effort.
-- Todd ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Statistics are like a lamp-post to a drunken man - more for leaning on than illumination.