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List:       opensolaris-docs-discuss
Subject:    Re: [docs-discuss] "Private" documentation and an open
From:       Ceri Davies <ceri () submonkey ! net>
Date:       2008-06-03 9:25:15
Message-ID: 20080603092515.GA10783 () submonkey ! net
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On Mon, Jun 02, 2008 at 07:43:34PM -0700, Dan Van Derveer wrote:
> I was recently hacking on some of the scripts in /lib/svc/method to change the way \
> my OpenSolaris install booted. In the process I found myself needing to understand \
> what all these scripts were actually doing. This was going along well until I hit a \
> line that had this: devfsadm -I
> 
> I ran off to the man page to see what this -I option does and surprisingly its not \
> documented. At the time I decided to leave off the option which lead to much \
> troubleshooting later on. All of that effort could have been avoided if these \
> options were documented were all system administrators look for those answers. 
> I filed a bug on this because obviously -I(and -P that i found later) are \
> legitimate options that the devfsadm program understands. The bug is located here: \
> http://bugs.opensolaris.org/view_bug.do?bug_id=6707975 
> In response to the bug I was told these options are "private" options by the \
> engineer working on the bug. The source for this command is freely available here: \
> http://src.opensolaris.org/source/xref/onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/cmd/devfsadm/devfsadm.c
>  In the switch block at line 738 I was able to get a good idea of what these \
> options do based on the comments. Obviously, they are not *that* private if the \
> source is easily obtained and understood. 
> I bring this up here because if OpenSolaris is going to be an open source project \
> all aspects of it need to behave like one and this is clearly an area that is \
> exhibiting a closed source mind set still.

I strongly disagree.

Even in open source it's perfectly fine to have features that users just
are not supposed to use, generally because they're very dangerous or
impossible to support.

Ceri
-- 
That must be wonderful!  I don't understand it at all.
                                                  -- Moliere


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