Thanks, Sumith

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:20 AM, Aaron Richton <richton@nbcs.rutgers.edu> wrote:

Is it just me or do people on this list never support problems related to anything but the latest release? Not everyone can immediately upgrade to the latest release to fix any issues they have, and they shouldn't have to either. Previous versions (to an extent) should be supported just like any other product.

Well, most "I didn't expect output x" questions end up with:

(0) This behavior is correct; we just need to figure out why/how it came to be. This is upgrade-independent, and I think we're pretty good with prompting users to figure out if it's the case. As an example,

Do you have reason to believe the error is wrong? i.e., does the parent of the entry you are trying to create exist, and do you have appropriate access (even "disclose" comes to mind in this case, let alone write)?

along with the excellent JLDAP code suggestions (it's been years since I've run javac) addressed that in this instance.

(1) This behavior is incorrect; in fact, we've already dealt with it. This obviously requires an upgrade for resolution. Hypothesize that situation--what's going to cause "No such object" as a lie in this situation? Most likely would be some bdb/hdb bug. RE23 CHANGES "egrep bdb|hdb | wc -l" shows 17 fixes since 2.3.27. Wouldn't you want those ALL ruled out?

(2) This behavior is incorrect; we need to work on a solution. This is made a LOT easier when a motivated reporter is on the same page as the developers, which pretty much means running the latest code. The only proper alternative is writing up a clean reproduction, and if a user has that, they'd be posting to the ITS instead of openldap-software. So to this audience, an upgrade is near-required if it hasn't already been undertaken.

Underlying all of this, there's the general Good Citizen maneuver. I mean, 2.3.27 has remote crasher vulnerabilities. Obviously that's something that sites can choose to consciously enter into, but if you're not clearly indicating that you're aware of that situation, we'd be amiss to NOT recommend an upgrade. Plus, if you're correct in the contention that this is improper behavior (#1 or #2), your next maneuver needs to be to upgrade anyway. Bottom line...we're suggesting it because it's the right answer.