forwarded message from mouring at etoh.eviladmin.org

[mouring at etoh.eviladmin.org]

On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 11:49:29PM -0500, mouring at etoh.eviladmin.org wrote:
> > if gethostname() returns failures if the hostname is greater then
> > MAXHOSTNAMELEN then this whole issue is moot, and this patch is wrong
> > since it creates a case where you have inconsistance behavior between
> > platforms.  And if that is the case, I will refuse to apply it.
>
> The point is that in operating systems, hostnames longer than MAXHOSTNAMELEN
> are not supported throughout the whole system.  So you get a consistent
> breakage (truncation, whatever) in the system.  In the Hurd, the breakage
> would only apply to the applications which can't deal.  So if ssh defines
> its own arbitrary limit, it could fail where the rest of the Hurd system
> wouldn't.  If many programs define their own (probably different) arbitrary
> limits, the behaviour of applications would be inconsisten on the Hurd
> (so, while you slice it for ssh on several platforms, I slice it for the
> Hurd and several applications :)
>

I think you missed the point.  =) The point is that I'd rather have
consistant behavior over every OS then 4 platforms that continue since
they have ENAMETOOLONG and the other 20+ fail.  Being consistant for
errors is the best when dealing with multiple OS projects.  Which was my
point above.

I'll look back in the archives at the first rounds of patches that where
suggested for dynamic gethostname() (almost a year ago IIRC) and see what
I can come up with.  However, it more then likely will be after my Gen Con
trip next week.

[..]
> > can't test.  Praying I don't break the platform and it gets released in
> > such a broken state in the next release (luckly, we have been doing pretty
> > good on testing before a release thanks to the many people who help out!).
>
> If there is nobody testing for the Hurd before a release, maybe we can find
> someone who is willing to do that.  Do you have a low volume mailing list
> where you announce pre releases for testers?
>

We have an announcement list, but I don't believe we have ever used it to
call for beta testers.  Damien, do I have rights to post to the
announcement list?  Maybe we should start announcing testing during the
code freezes.

> > So, you now understand where I come from. =)
>
> Thanks for the explanation.  I don't envy you :)
>

I have to say a good 90% of the patchsets from OpenBSD's tree apply with
little fuss.. But it's the 10% that becames the bane of my existance.  If
I have my choice, it would stay that way to get better. =)

- Ben