Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 16:34:42 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Watson <rwatson@freebsd.org> To: Jon Noack <noackjr@alumni.rice.edu> Cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: release-engineering branches (was Re: kernel panic in if_ppp.c) Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1040415162520.95950H-100000@fledge.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <407EEB09.7080302@alumni.rice.edu>
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On Thu, 15 Apr 2004, Jon Noack wrote: > On 4/15/2004 2:13 PM, Robert Watson wrote: > > Currently, this fix doesn't fit the charter for the RELENG_5_2 branch, > > which is focussed on security-only fixes. However, there's an on-going > > discussion of broadening the scope of the current security branches to > > release-engineering branches. If this happens, I'll merge it to that > > branch also (feel free to remind me if I forget :-). > > This is a fabulous idea. I know it means a little more work, but I can > think of several situations where I had to manually patch a release > branch (or run -STABLE or -CURRENT) because I needed a simple bugfix. > Broadening the scope to make them release-engineering branches would > have saved me from this extra work. I think it increases the > "durability" of releases, allowing people to more strictly use just > releases. As a person responsible for FreeBSD machines in production, I > find this highly desirable. I can see definite complications (like the > MFC rules for the branch -- recent changes in commit permissions to > require an "Approved by:" line should help, though), but my opinion is > that this is worthwhile. Yeah, this is very much a "work in progress", but it's something we've been discussing for a while, and something I'd very much like to see happen. As you point out, there will be a fair number of complications (and policy questions) to work out. However, we've seen enough "good match" changes that might be worth meging that I think it's definitely something to consider strongly. I.e., low-risk changes that introduce a good fix to a critical stability or feature bug on a release engineering branch. Anyhow, expect something out of the various teams soon on how we propose to handle it, and send feedback :-). Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects robert@fledge.watson.org Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research
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