[ntp:questions] Re: Why ntpd is losing out to openntp at BSD

David L. Mills mills at udel.edu
Fri Oct 15 12:33:46 UTC 2004


Harlan,

Massive disagreement. The code is rotten. My point stands, especially 
with respect to protocol conformance and feature bloat. My comments have 
nothing whatsoever to do with bugzilla. They have to do with style and 
robustness of coding. If your radar requires bugzilla, I submit you need 
new klystrons.

Dave

Harlan Stenn wrote:
> Dave,
> 
> 
>>I thought my position was well known.
> 
> 
> If it's not in bugzilla it quickly falls off my radar.
> 
> 
>>The SNTP client now in the  distribution is poorly written,
> 
> 
> While I'd format the block comments and the function prologues differently,
> the code seems pretty clean to me.  It also builds everywhere I have tried.
> 
> 
>>likely to be misused (server)
> 
> 
> This can be fixed pretty easily.
> 
> 
>>and just not up to par with the ntpd code and maintenance mission.
> 
> 
> We clearly disagree on the former point (there are hunks of code in ntpd
> that nobody wants to touch because they are just arcane), and I don't
> know what you mean by the "maintenance mission".
> 
> 
>>A good, compliant SNTP client is not hard to write at all, but discipline
>>is necessary to avoid feature bloat.
> 
> 
> Nothing else has shown up.
> 
> 
>>The feature most likely to be prized would be a MIB and SNMP client.
> 
> 
> Nothing useful has shown up here, either.
> 
> And nobody has offered to either do the work or provide money to pay for
> any development.
> 
> H




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