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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2024 10:05:22 -0700
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] What to do with ext/snmp?
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From: jimw@trainedmonkey.com ("Jim Winstead")



On Fri, Aug 30, 2024, at 9:54 AM, Calvin Buckley wrote:
> On Aug 29, 2024, at 2:49=E2=80=AFPM, Christoph M. Becker <cmbecker69@g=
mx.de> wrote:
>>=20
>> Hi all,
>>=20
>> it seems to me that we're pulling through ext/snmp without having any
>> real expert of the protocol, let alone of the implementation.  The
>> extension has no code owner, and according to EXTENSIONS, it has no
>> primary maintainer for more than ten years.  Skimming through the com=
mit
>> log mostly shows general clean-ups and changes.  And seeing that there
>> have only two issues been reported on Github[1], I would conclude that
>> either the extension just works as expected, or that it is not used
>> much.  A recent doc-bug report[2] makes me believe it's the latter.
>>=20
>> Personally, I barely know what SNMP is used for, but have no deeper
>> understanding of that protocol, and I can remember that it took me qu=
ite
>> a while to work out how to even set up a testing environment on Windo=
ws
>> (without understanding the details).
>>=20
>> So the question is: do we have any SNMP experts (or some who want to
>> become SNMP experts) around, who would want to take a look at the
>> extension and its documentation?
>>=20
>> [1]
>> <https://github.com/php/php-src/issues?q=3Dis%3Aissue+label%3A%22Exte=
nsion%3A+snmp%22+is%3Aopen>
>> [2] <https://github.com/php/doc-en/issues/3690>
>>=20
>> Christoph
>
> I suspect it's not in high use either; Michael's reply suggests that.
> Maybe it could be spun out to PECL if there's a lack of interest in it,
> like imap was?

That probably makes the most sense.

> (stupid speculation follows, people who know the history correct me)
>
> There are a few other extensions like that in ext/. I'm thinking a lot
> of them would have been in PECL or done in userland, but they were at
> the right place in the right time and ended up in ext/ instead. They
> might predate PECL (seems to be the case for SNMP), or wrapped a libra=
ry
> hat was mature and well-used when it was written (seemed to the case f=
or
> imap).

Yes, ext/snmp probably goes back as far as the PHP 3 days (some guy name=
d Rasmus was the original author).

Perhaps if the effort from the PHP Foundation to build a next-generation=
 PECL bears fruit, an even harder look can be taken at migrating out eve=
n more of the extensions still living in the php-src tree. With some rob=
ust CI, care could be made to make sure changes in php-src that impact e=
xtensions is noticed and dealt with, but spinning them out on their own =
might make them easier for more people to contribute to and maintain.

Jim