Removal of unusable or unnecessary code

G

gpatrick

OpenBSD has created LibreSSL and apparently has removed 90,000 lines of C code that was no longer needed.

In that same context, would it be practical to do the same with the FreeBSD code base? Certainly there are remnants of code no longer needed, or partially functioning things that can be removed. What I'm thinking of specifically as an example is VNET/VIMAGE. After a couple of years there are still open tickets related to the loss of pages upon vimage shutdowns. If this code isn't going to be fixed then what is the purpose of having partially working code?
 
How do you know the code isn't going to fixed? You can't compare OpenSSL to the FreeBSD kernel because the former doesn't have to deal with any of the dirty details of the hardware like interrupts, timing etc. and there are many many interdependencies of a nature that you never see in user space code. Many times the development of a particular kernel component is slowed down by development of some other component, I would guess this is the case with VIMAGE development.
 
Also, "a couple of years" is a very short timeframe in FreeBSD development to figure out if something is broken, dead and warrants removal (at least historically). Timelines of 5, 10 or more years are more likely.
 
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