the reason i've been sitting on this is that, while true we aren't currently actively developing it, i'm not convinced that the need for the functionality this brought to the table has gone away.  it's akin to adb where you can easily start debugging a CrOS system w/out needing to mess with a UI.

I'm ok keeping brdebug as long as we plan to resurrect it and explore potential use cases, which is the ideal case. However, to keep it, we should have at least one continuous builder that builds brdebug to catch potential breakages.

Otherwise, code will rot and it would become a pure maintenance overhead along with its dependencies (peerd, USB gadget drivers, etc) each time we update other system components like libchrome, dbus, avahi, etc and need to keep brdebug in sync with those components.

If we're not using it now, nor plan to use it in the future, we should at least remove the flags. It's kinda silly for everybody to keep building this over and over again without a firm plan to actually use it. Keeping the code around "just in case" is fine, let's just not constantly build it.

i really want to keep it going, but if we don't have the dev cycles to do it, then i guess there's not much to debate now :/

 Issue 676717  has been merged into this issue.

IMHO, we can always resurrect the code from git history in the future if we decide to work on it again. As the code isn't in active maintenance, we will spend roughly the same amount of effort to get the code up running again in the future, whether or not we keep the code in repo.  The slight benefit of keeping the code in repo is that someone else may discover the code before they start something similar, but a few of us will most likely remember the code existed in the past :)

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/overlays/chromiumos-overlay/+/51a2b639f055fb27bc8843e562669446d31c006f

commit 51a2b639f055fb27bc8843e562669446d31c006f
Author: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Date: Thu Dec 15 19:26:55 2016

chromeos-dev-root: remove obsolete brdebug-init

brdebug-init was part of the obsolete brillo debug link.

BUG= chromium:674648 
BUG= chromium:673072 
TEST=Remote trybot runs.

Change-Id: I05f36730b60be925972dbab59ca2b5da8005db8a
Reviewed-on: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/377640
Commit-Ready: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Tested-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Reviewed-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>

[rename] https://crrev.com/51a2b639f055fb27bc8843e562669446d31c006f/chromeos-base/chromeos-dev-root/chromeos-dev-root-0.0.1-r3.ebuild
[modify] https://crrev.com/51a2b639f055fb27bc8843e562669446d31c006f/chromeos-base/chromeos-dev-root/chromeos-dev-root-0.0.1.ebuild

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/overlays/chromiumos-overlay/+/857704d77bc8d7e2b98b666b2897870ccd917e5f

commit 857704d77bc8d7e2b98b666b2897870ccd917e5f
Author: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Date: Thu Dec 15 19:26:57 2016

net-dns/avahi-daemon: ignore obsolete brillo-debug USE flag

The brillo-debug USE flag was obsolete along the brillo debug link,
which depended on the avahi daemon.

BUG= chromium:674648 
BUG= chromium:673072 
TEST=Remote trybot runs.

Change-Id: I1f48f098cde3f3f3bb36f16f5372c4d653242195
Reviewed-on: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/377641
Commit-Ready: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Tested-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Reviewed-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>

[rename] https://crrev.com/857704d77bc8d7e2b98b666b2897870ccd917e5f/net-dns/avahi-daemon/avahi-daemon-0.0.1-r5.ebuild
[modify] https://crrev.com/857704d77bc8d7e2b98b666b2897870ccd917e5f/net-dns/avahi-daemon/avahi-daemon-0.0.1.ebuild

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/overlays/chromiumos-overlay/+/d6215f230821c8b5906e257dc0e1ce060abd31d0

commit d6215f230821c8b5906e257dc0e1ce060abd31d0
Author: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Date: Thu Dec 15 19:26:58 2016

virtual/target-chromium-os-dev: remove obsolete dependency on brdebug

The brillo debug link (brdebug) was obsolete.

BUG= chromium:674648 
BUG= chromium:673072 
TEST=Remote trybot runs.

Change-Id: I198a3b670761056bfe89edd0ec82ced3294876d1
Reviewed-on: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/377642
Commit-Ready: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Tested-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Reviewed-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>

[rename] https://crrev.com/d6215f230821c8b5906e257dc0e1ce060abd31d0/virtual/target-chromium-os-dev/target-chromium-os-dev-1-r20.ebuild
[modify] https://crrev.com/d6215f230821c8b5906e257dc0e1ce060abd31d0/virtual/target-chromium-os-dev/metadata.xml
[modify] https://crrev.com/d6215f230821c8b5906e257dc0e1ce060abd31d0/virtual/target-chromium-os-dev/target-chromium-os-dev-1.ebuild

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/overlays/chromiumos-overlay/+/01cf0da840760339caae639dcc996f1c7a2cb1a3

commit 01cf0da840760339caae639dcc996f1c7a2cb1a3
Author: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Date: Thu Dec 15 19:26:59 2016

brillo-base: remove obsolete brdebug-init package

brdebug-init was obsolete along with the brillo debug link.

BUG= chromium:674648 
BUG= chromium:673072 
TEST=Remote trybot runs.

Change-Id: I1dbb3572f02177beedd62a330cf9ff80bfa4fa16
Reviewed-on: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/377643
Commit-Ready: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Tested-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Reviewed-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>

[delete] https://crrev.com/d6215f230821c8b5906e257dc0e1ce060abd31d0/brillo-base/brdebug-init/brdebug-init-9999.ebuild
[delete] https://crrev.com/d6215f230821c8b5906e257dc0e1ce060abd31d0/brillo-base/brdebug-init/brdebug-init-0.0.1-r884.ebuild

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/overlays/chromiumos-overlay/+/cdc1c5bff34c98f0808292c313b795854e957744

commit cdc1c5bff34c98f0808292c313b795854e957744
Author: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Date: Thu Dec 15 19:27:00 2016

brillo-base: remove obsolete brdebug package

BUG= chromium:674648 
BUG= chromium:673072 
TEST=Remote trybot runs.

Change-Id: I8f0f1a62f93ed01316b0c0db5002cd665a9d4080
Reviewed-on: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/377644
Commit-Ready: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Tested-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Reviewed-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>

[delete] https://crrev.com/01cf0da840760339caae639dcc996f1c7a2cb1a3/brillo-base/brdebug/brdebug-0.0.1-r1119.ebuild
[delete] https://crrev.com/01cf0da840760339caae639dcc996f1c7a2cb1a3/brillo-base/brdebug/brdebug-9999.ebuild

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/d6930ab64263c3ea00360c96dfba4b8fec52dcb9

commit d6930ab64263c3ea00360c96dfba4b8fec52dcb9
Author: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Date: Thu Dec 15 19:25:02 2016

brdebug: remove obsolete brillo debug link

BUG= chromium:674648 
BUG= chromium:673072 
CQ-DEPEND=CL:377640
CQ-DEPEND=CL:377641
CQ-DEPEND=CL:377642
CQ-DEPEND=CL:377643
CQ-DEPEND=CL:377644
TEST=Remote trybot runs.

Change-Id: I68cef23c7b587c0dacadb2b7e4ac7c9af8e67cb8
Reviewed-on: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/377864
Commit-Ready: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Tested-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>
Reviewed-by: Ben Chan <benchan@chromium.org>

[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/peerd_client.cc
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/bin/setup-usb-link
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/device_property_watcher.h
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/brdebugd.cc
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/brdebug.gyp
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/init/setup-usb-link.conf
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/bin/setup-veth-link
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/device_property_watcher.cc
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/init/brdebugd.conf
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/brdebug_testrunner.cc
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/peerd_client.h
[delete] https://crrev.com/91ddfcb3d8e556d47010c68c448b7aab2f29e5e6/brdebug/udev/99-setup-veth-link.rules