[Pkg-netatalk-devel] Bug#685878: DDP support in netatalk v3

[T. Joseph Carter]

Hi folks,

There's a lot of good reasons to see netatalk v3 packaged for Debian, 
since there are features v2 just doesn't have such as hosting for 
Apple's Time Machine backups and the like.

That said however, there is a bit of a spanner in the works because 
upstream decided to abandon support for the DDP (AppleTalk) ethernet 
protocol that exists alongside TCP/IP.  Their argument is that all 
but vintage Apple computers pre-MacOS X actually use DDP, so it's now 
quite obsolete.

If however you know anybody who actually has some of these now 
vintage computers networked using DDP (hi!), they're unlikely to be 
pleased to see their network suddenly disappear on upgrade to v3.  I 
don't have a lot of expectation that such old machines should be 
allowed anywhere near the public internet, but on a firewalled LAN, 
eh why not?

Obviously v2 and v3 cannot coexist on the same machine, at least for 
now.  I'm investigating whether or not v2 can be cut down to coexist 
on a machine with netatalk v3 to support old clients.  Perhaps with a 
smaller target (only supporting those legacy clients), it might be 
easier to evaluate patches made to v3 that may affect things like 
security.

Anyway, just registering my interest in the outcome of this issue 
whenever it gets resolved.  :)

Joseph