From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Dec 17 00:38:37 1995 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id AAA06683 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 17 Dec 1995 00:38:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from news1.gtn.com (news1.gtn.com [192.109.159.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA06678 Sun, 17 Dec 1995 00:38:32 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by news1.gtn.com (8.7.2/8.7.2) id JAA15769; Sun, 17 Dec 1995 09:30:06 +0100 (MET) Received: from knobel.gun.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by knobel.gun.de (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA00787; Sun, 17 Dec 1995 09:22:15 +0100 Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 09:22:15 +0100 (MET) From: Andreas Klemm To: current@FreeBSD.org, hackers@FreeBSD.org cc: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de, jkh@FreeBSD.org Subject: FreeBSD-current-stable ??? Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi FreeBSD core team ! [ Possibly I'm speaking for many other people here ] Generally I would be interested to help testing and debugging new FreeBSD-current features. But when reading the -current mailing list, FreeBSD-current, so to say FreeBSD-2.2 in it's early days, seems to be an instability nightmare. Perhaps this expression is a bit oversized, but please understand my point of view. I read in -current very often messages like, can't boot, can't compile, unreferenced symbols, ... and so on ... Nothing on which you would want to run your home system (news, mail, www). Since I only have one PC and one harddisk, as many other people, it's not possible for me to switch to -current, because I need a certain level of stability. When speaking with people like Martin Cracauer, then I get the impression, that possibly more people would be interested to help in FreeBSD developement. Perhaps developing additional features, too. But they only have one machine, which shouldn't get into a very unstable state. So how could one attract more people, to work on the bleeding edge, without loosing stability too much ??!! Could FreeBSD-current developement be made more attractive to more people by splitting -current into 2 branches ? FreeBSD-current FreeBSD-experimental The FreeBSD-experimental tree should be for typical alpha software for equipped hackers with two systems or two harddisks ... If there is a brand new driver with a risk of crashing the systemm it should be added and tested there. If the new driver doesn't cause crashes or such it shoud move to FreeBSD-current, to introduce it to a larger audience that is willed to test the bleeding edge. Such newly introduced feature should be tested well in -current and should get to a stable state in -current. If it is stable, then a) it can be added to the -stable branch. b) you have a stable -current with the newest "tested" features This would have the advantage, that more people could work on -current, since it could be more stable then now. And ... the developers would work on a developement platform, that has incorporated the newest features. What about that ? Too much admin overhaead ? Perhaps that bit more on administration overhead regarding the newly introduced source branch can be justified with a certain increase of FreeBSD-current developers ?! Would it be possible to start with such a "beast" by simply leaving current as it ->> "experimental branch" and by introducing something like a FreeBSD-beta branch and adding current-changes to it, that are known to be stable ? So you'd have a release branch - the last good one stable branch - fixes for last -release and stable new features from beta branch beta branch - new features, something like SNAPSHOT in it's early hours ;-) alpha (current) branch - current for hackers as it is Would/could you agree with such a change ? If you would offer a more stable -current as described, I'd immediately switch to sup the new beta-branch to see what's new and to give feedbacks... So I can't :( Andreas /// -- andreas@knobel.gun.de /\/\___ Wiechers & Partner Datentechnik GmbH Andreas Klemm ___/\/\/ - Support Unix - aklemm@wup.de - \/ ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/Printing/aps-491.tgz apsfilter - magic print filter 4lpd >>> knobel is powered by FreeBSD <<<