1.3 vs. 2.0 (was: Re: The ?last? 1.3.15/Win32 discrepancy)

[Greg Stein <gs...@lyra.org>]

On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 09:15:54PM -0600, William A. Rowe, Jr. wrote:
> > From: Greg Stein [mailto:gstein@lyra.org]
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 8:34 PM
> > 
> > Agreed. I'm somewhat dismayed by the large Win32 changes for 1.3 that are
> > occurring. That's a lot of revamping, with the potential for making 1.3 even
> > more wobbly out in the field (I'm sure it works great for OtherBill, but
> > what about our users?).
> > 
> > On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 05:29:46PM -0800, rbb@covalent.net wrote:
> > > 
> > > I am +1 for 2.0 -0 for 1.3.  I really think we should just leave 1.3 alone
> > > as much as possible right now.  I would like to see the byterange problems
> > > solved, but everything else should be left for 2.0 IMO.  Apache 1.3 on
> > > Win32 will never be a great solution.
> 
> Ok, two votes from the non-win32 crowd...
> 
> <rant>
> 
> Hmmm... so I'm scratching my itch, and not scratching yours?

I said "dismayed". I didn't say "stop", and I didn't veto, and I didn't
complain that it should be scaled back.

But you can rant all you want. I still get to raise my concerns about the
Win32 port whether or not I use it. It is called the "Apache Web Server" and
that means that I feel responsible for it. To some extent, just being a
member of the ASF and the HTTPD group means that other people expect me to
be responsible, too.

Let's flip this around. What is David Reid made the BeOS version a pile of
crap? Every time somebody tried to install it, it would crash. They couldn't
configure it. It would only serve the first 2kbytes of a file. What would
you think? I bet you'd be awfully concerned.

I'm not saying you're building crap. I said that I'm concerned about the
amount of change and, thus, the possible introduction of problems.

>...
> Win32 is near rock stable.  It had two new glitches.  The code I've introduced 
> for 1.3.15 doesn't carry those sorts of new risks.

You probably would have said the same last time, too :-)

I know that I say all of my changes don't involve risks, but they do. Hell,
I made what appeared to be a small change from Joe Orton to fix some
byterange handling. It fixed it, but a small ripple broke another situation.
And when people dug in to resolve that, discovered a bunch of other
problems.

>...
> Yes... I can build on Linux and run the Apache server -I- want, but that's not
> my usual haunt.  Yes... 2.0 resolves massive compatibility issues for Win32.
> Yes... 1.3.15 isn't being raced anymore.  But no, 1.3.15 isn't a dead horse.
> It will be out there for years.  I know neither of you two like that, and I do
> agree 2.0 is a superior solution.  But we have many folks out there running 
> 1.3.15, needing solutions (or having to hack their own) around things we do 
> very, very easily with Unix in 1.3.15.

Another alternative world is: if you want to run 1.3 on Windows, then just
deal with the problems. If you want something that truly works, then you're
going to need to upgrade to 2.0. Tough luck.

Let's take an extreme position to clarify this point: if I say that 1.3
doesn't run right on my Apple ][, does that mean that I can go and revamp
the whole thing? "But 1.3 is going to be out there for a long time, so it
should work for those Apple ][ users!"

> These two last changes (module names, config/status of service opts) I believe
> are needed in 1.3.15 to put the tree to bed, from Win32's own perspective.

Those don't bother me. It's things like revamping the processing model: the
console hook, CGI execution bits, etc etc.

But seriously: I'm not vetoing them. I'm raising a point that it makes me
somewhat uncomfortable, and that I'd ask you to seriously consider whether
they ABSOLUTELY MUST go into 1.3.

>...
> There have been a number of times over the past two months that the Win32 
> build of the 2.0 tree was so totally broken I just walked away.  I try to
> be very cautious of the 'other' sources, and when I grep, I actually take
> the time to search *.in, unix directories, etc, even though they are totally
> irrelevant to the Win32 build.  It would be nice to see more folks take the 
> same time to include *.dsp,def,hw as well.  I'd be happier fixing a broken
> .hw file where someone 'tried' to be thorough, than chasing down something
> that was ignored by the original committer in haste.

And it is great that you do so (and if we want to play the "well, I take
care" game :-), then I'll point out the apu_private.hw that I added for
you... I just couldn't hook the darn thing into the DSP build).

But I'd state that it is easier for you to change the Unix-ish files, than
it is for us to change a .dsp (since those are generated files needing a
specific format).

>...
> So if I was productive scratching my itch to see a clean 1.3.x Win32, then
> that's what it is.  I'm off to 2.0 after tommorow morning ... to catch up 
> with the rest of you.  Maybe implement .asp on 2.0 - we'll see where my next
> itch is.  For those with no technical justification other than 'not my itch',
> this sort of '-0 for 1.3.15' is nothing but irritating.

It isn't meant to be irritating. It is meant to convey concern about radical
change for a product that we feel responsible for. You perceive it as a bug
that must be fixed; we perceive it as something that could be punted (thus
avoiding possible destabilization) in favor of referring users to 2.0.

Again: nobody is asking you to stop, only saying that we're uncomfortable,
and ask that changes to 1.3 be minimized if and when possible. Consider
punting users to 2.0 rather than continuing to refine 1.3.

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/