2 questions regarding PF

[Stathis Kamperis]

2010/11/3 Przemysław Pawełczyk <pp_o2 at o2.pl>:
> On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 08:04:21 +0200
> Stathis Kamperis <ekamperi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 2010/11/3 Przemysław Pawełczyk <pp_o2 at o2.pl>:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > 1. Why PF 4.2 not 4.7 or 4.8?
>> >
>> > OpenBSD page http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/index.html
>> > has one important remark bolded: "In particular, there are
>> > significant differences between 4.6 and 4.7."
>> >
>> > Doeas it mean that I would have to learn something rather
>> > old - how to use PF 4.2 instead of PF 4.7/4.8. Right?
>> >
>>
>> It's easier (but still very hard) to do incremental updates of PF,
>> than to jump to the most recent version of it. Besides, just think of
>> it. OpenBSD developers themselves, went through all the intermediate
>> versions before landing in 4.8.
>
> Hi,
>
> "Besides, just think of it." As the OpenBSD team ***did*** the work
> (for others, DF including) why not to jump to the latest version? Is
> not justified such thinking?

1. They did not do the work for DF nor anyone else.
http://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2010_pf/mgp00012.html
As the slide says, PF is getting harder and harder to port with
increasing version numbers. Probably, due to its tighter integration
with the rest of the OS. But also because it contains unreadable code,
e.g. http://www.netbsd.org/~rmind/pf.txt . On top of these, we have
dfly-specific features, that need to be preserved. So huge-diffs don't
quite work.

2. If you go for the latest/greatest and fail, you end up with your
ancient PF version. But if you do incremental updates, you mitigate
the impact of a potentially unsuccessful port. Also, if you are
tired/bored at some point, others have a stepping-stone to continue
the effort.

>
>> I also grab the chance to thank Jan Lentfer in public, for his
>> dedication and hard efforts that yielded excellent results.
>
> My God, I only asked why... You are the second person paying tribute to
> Mr Jan Lentfer publicly for His works taking advantage of my e-mail. Did
> I say anything belittling His efforts and the results?
>
> I thought it was understandable to all that His works are highly
> appreciated.

You are being touchy and sarcastic, but there's no need for either.

>
> Regards
>
> P.S. Why everybody answers to my account and to the mailing list? I
> subscribed to the mailing list with provision not to be clobbered with
> double e-mails.

You could have said it at your first email and we wouldn't.
Usually, people that subscribe to a mailing list, choose to receive
messages in a daily digest or so. In such cases, it's reasonable to
CC' them when we reply to their messages.

Stathis