[squid-users] Is there any squid 4.x tested with Delay pools to work and limit well ?

Antony Stone Antony.Stone at squid.open.source.it
Mon Apr 17 19:14:52 UTC 2023


On Monday 17 April 2023 at 20:52:41, Dr.X wrote:

> Could you please explain why the developers are upgrading Squid from
> version 4 to 5 and 6, while ignoring a critical built-in feature like
> Delay Pools that has been reported as a bug since Squid 4.x?

I am not a Squid developer, and I do not even pretend to speak for those who 
are, but as someone familiar with Open Source Software in general, I would 
suggest that:

a) Squid is an Open Source project
b) most Open Source projects are developed (at least at the start) by people 
who have a personal need for whatever it is they set out to do
c) people work on the things they find most important and/or interesting
d) people work on the things they are best at (and can therefore make good 
progress with)
e) people work on things they get paid to work on
f) your idea of "critical" may not match other peoples' priorities

So, if nobody is working on something that you think is rather important:

1. they might not have have a personal use for it, and therefore don't feel 
inclined to spend time on it
2. they may not have the expertise to solve whatever the problems with it are
3. they may not have the time to make good progress on it, compared to any of 
the other things that are on the list of "things to do"

Most Open Source projects (I believe Squid is included in this) offer to 
develop specific features, or work on specific bugs, in return for payment from 
anyone who thinks they should be worked on (or worked on more quickly).

So, if something is important to you (that's a generic "you"), you can pay for 
someone to work on it.

You're also perfectly welcome to work on it yourself in order to improve the 
code which everyone uses, and which you got for free to start with.


It's a basic tenet of Open Source Software that if you think it could be 
better, you can improve it, or pay for someone else to improve it for you.  
You're not forced to accept whatever "upgrades" some closed-source development 
company decides they want to release, with no chance at all on your side to 
make changes to the code.

Many Open Source projects have been completely forked (meaning that someone, 
or some group, decides "we don't like the way this team of developers is 
taking things, so we're going to start from the code base and take it in a 
different direction") and in many cases both the original and the fork have 
long and successful lives from that point onward.  There's no way that could 
happen with proprietary (closed-source) code.


Antony.

-- 
Why are they called "The Rocky Mountains"?
What are other mountains made of?

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