Re: pkg/47943 (recent update to libpcap breaks tcpdump, nmap and wireshark on Solaris)

[Jonathan Perkin <jperkin%pkgsrc.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR pkg/47943; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Jonathan Perkin <jperkin%pkgsrc.org@localhost>
To: Tim Zingelman <zingelman%gmail.com@localhost>
Cc: =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rn?= Clausen <joern.clausen%uni-bielefeld.de@localhost>,
        gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost, 
solaris-pkg-people%netbsd.org@localhost,
        gnats-admin%netbsd.org@localhost, pkgsrc-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Subject: Re: pkg/47943 (recent update to libpcap breaks tcpdump, nmap and
 wireshark on Solaris)
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 12:42:17 +0100

 Let me clarify:
 
  - As someone who has worked on pkgsrc for Solaris for over a decade now,
    and been a strong advocate for it, I would still love for us to support
    as many releases as possible (I even had most of SunOS 4.x support done
    at one point).
    
  - There is no desire, and never will be at least on my part, to drop
    support for older releases.  It is the entire point of pkgsrc to be
    portable to as many operating systems as possible.
 
  - As part of my continued work on pkgsrc/Solaris I do not deliberately
    set out to break older releases - on the contrary I will often do what
    I can to avoid this, by adding conditionals for the correct OPSYS
    version or PKGSRC_COMPILER, etc.
 
  - Unfortunately, I am unable to test my changes on older releases, due to
    the concerns regarding Oracle licensing, and therefore lack of access
    to those systems.
 
 Therefore:
 
  - I am reliant on users of older releases to point out where we have
    broken things and to help us to resolve these problems.  "You broke it,
    you fix it" is not helpful as I do not have the means necessary to fix
    it.
 
  - If Tim is monitoring solaris-pkg-people for patch-less PRs then I will
    take back my assertion that they aren't helpful.  My opinion on that
    matter is based on the fact that there are 94 open PRs against
    solaris-pkg-people, many of which do not include any suggested fix or
    patch, and my concern has always been that all these do is clutter up
    the PR database.  Broken packages can simply be determined by results
    sent to the pkgsrc-bulk list and will therefore remain current rather
    than stagnate (we still have some open since 2005).
 
  - It would be fantastic if we could get either:
 
    - regular pbulk runs from yourselves, or
    - access to older systems (Joyent provide access to a SmartOS machine
      for pkgsrc developers).
 
    to dynamically pick up these regressions.
 
 So, that said, let's get back to the PR in hand.
 
 I confess to being confused now.  Originally the problem was described to
 be missing symbols which may or may not be caused by the removal of
 dlpisubs.c, however the latest update says that the only changes you have
 made are for manual pages.
 
 Please can you provide the full patch which works for you, I will verify
 it on SmartOS, and if it looks good will commit it.
 
 Thanks,
 
 -- 
 Jonathan Perkin       www.perkin.org.uk
 github.com/jperkin  twitter.com/jperkin