From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Nov 12 17:16:55 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9828F1065691 for ; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:16:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jerrymc@gizmo.acns.msu.edu) Received: from gizmo.acns.msu.edu (gizmo.acns.msu.edu [35.8.1.43]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5B9928FC1A for ; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:16:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jerrymc@gizmo.acns.msu.edu) Received: from gizmo.acns.msu.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by gizmo.acns.msu.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id mACHD132092776; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:13:01 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jerrymc@gizmo.acns.msu.edu) Received: (from jerrymc@localhost) by gizmo.acns.msu.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id mACHD1r5092775; Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:13:01 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jerrymc) Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:13:01 -0500 From: Jerry McAllister To: Jonathan McKeown Message-ID: <20081112171301.GC92510@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> References: <200811121259.25046.jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200811121259.25046.jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Release schedules X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:16:55 -0000 On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 12:59:24PM +0200, Jonathan McKeown wrote: > I've been biting my tongue about this because I'm not sure that I can offer > any help or useful suggestions, but here goes... > > What on earth is going on with release scheduling? > > FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE, according to the scheduling page at www.freebsd.org, > should have had a Release Candidate published two months ago, on 13 > September. Instead we're still on a Beta - BETA-2, which isn't mentioned in > the original schedule. The todo list which has appeared on the website in > previous releases isn't available this time, so I can't even get a feel for > the likely cause of the holdup. > > As I said, I hate to stand on the sidelines and heckle when I'm not doing > anything to contribute to the release, but the timetable has slipped badly > and I don't feel I can find information about the reasons or the revised > timings. What exactly is going on, and is there anything a busy sysadmin, > poor in time, bandwidth and C skills, can do to help with either the release > itself or the apparent scheduling/communication issues? > > (I've sent this to -questions rather than -stable because it seems to be an > ongoing problem with the timetabling of releases.) Those dates are guesses at best and should be taken as such. People crabbing about missing those dates has resulted in not posting any dates at times in the past. I would rather have a fair guess than no information at all. It would be OK if Release Engineering would occasionally update their guesses as they get more information. But, they tend to be quite busy just getting all the things needed to do the release taken care of so I imagine they don't even think about it. Probably at this time of final builds and running test suites, people are busy cleaning up last things that didn't play well together - modifications that may have banged heads or that required another thing to be updated. Ports have to be built against the release candidate too and that can reveal some things that need to be fixed at the last minute. Undoubtably, some conflicts have been discovered as final builds are being made that have to be addresses before a release is considered clean and finally ready to be released. If you have the resources to install and run the betas and give them a good beating and then carefully report any anomalies and conflicts you find, that might help. Generally, more detail in the reports is better than less detail. I would like to see the release schedules updated more and I would guess that others would too. But, there is only so much you can expect out of volunteers already robbing time from their paying jobs. ////jerry > > Jonathan > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"