Re: Bug in ppp_async.c

[Albert D. Cahalan]

Paul Mackerras writes:
> Albert D. Cahalan writes:

>> Even Red Hat 7 only has the 2.3.11 version.
>>
>> The 2.4.xx series is supposed to be stable. If there is
>> any way you could add a compatibility hack, please do so.
>
> Stable != backwards compatible to the year dot.

I know. It means that you don't break the API between 2.4.0
and 2.4.1 though. It means you don't break distributions that
were supposed to be ready for the 2.4.xx kernels.

> ppp-2.4.0 has been
> out for over 5 months now.

That is less than the typical time between releases of
a normal Linux distribution.

> Adding the compatibility stuff back in
> would make the PPP subsystem much more complicated and less robust.

I wouldn't be asking you to add it back if you hadn't
removed it. It was already there.

I don't trust that the new version will be a drop-in replacement
due to past experiences, and I wonder if my 2.0.xx kernel will
still be supported by the new user-space code. So this sucks.

> And pppd is not the only thing you would have to upgrade if you are
> using a 2.4.0 with Red Hat 7.0 - I would expect that you would also at
> least have to upgrade modutils, and switch over from ipchains to
> iptables if you use the netfilter stuff.

Nope, the network people even offer some Linux 2.0 compatibility.
That dates back many years! Hey, I like your example.

For modutils, there was a security problem anyway.