busybox Reboot

[Andy Green]

Rob Landley wrote:

Hi Rob -

> And the "bitrot" you refer to only happens when you upgrade only some pieces.
...
> If you upgrade everything, it should work (and if it doesn't, tell us and 
> we'll fix it).  If you upgrade nothing, it should work.  If you upgrade some 
> things and not others, that can break and we may not be very sympathetic.

Depending on the problem some 'pieces' can be outside his box, eg, new
tcp flags in use, new FPGA config, etc.  As you suggested nothing
pointed to busybox anyway.  That sinking feeling when you hear you need
to wade in a fix something on a box nobody touched for 10 years is much
worse than hearing something needs fixing on a living system that has
been maintained and can be regenerated easily from current sources, etc.

> If you have the source, you can backport individual patches to old stuff 
> yourself.  That's what Red Hat used to do, and Fedora Legacy exists for this, 
> and so on.

Yes it gives you that ability if you are motivated to take that path.
But in order to determine what new bits are needed I imagine one would
run an updated version first or at least perform some diagnostic actions
towards pointing the finger with a bit better resolution.

> If he's willing to pay somebody to support it, then GPL software is indeed 
> part of the commercial word.  If he's trying to do the half and half thing 
> again (support for really old stuff, support for free), it's unlikely to 
> work.

Well then we'll see.

-Andy
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