From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Dec 13 16:38:02 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 BC28C1065689 for ; Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:38:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za) Received: from hermes.hst.org.za (onix.hst.org.za [209.203.2.133]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E358B8FC18 for ; Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:38:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za) Received: from [10.1.11.1] ([10.1.11.1]) (authenticated bits=0) by hermes.hst.org.za (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id mBDGPX4S080740 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:25:33 +0200 (SAST) (envelope-from jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za) From: Jonathan McKeown To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:44:33 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.4 References: <200811121259.25046.jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za> In-Reply-To: X-Face: $@VrUx^RHy/}yu]jKf/<4T%/d|F+$j-Ol2"2J$q+%OK1]&/G_S9(=?utf-8?q?HkaQ*=60!=3FYOK=3FY!=27M=60C=0A=09aP=5C9nVPF8Q=7DCilHH8l=3B=7E!4?= =?utf-8?q?2HK6=273lg4J=7Daz?=@1Dqqh:J]M^"YPn*2IWrZON$1+G?oX3@ =?utf-8?q?k=230=0A=0954XDRg=3DYn=5FF-etwot4U=24b?=dTS{i X-Spam-Score: -4.037 () ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.61 on 209.203.2.133 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: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:38:02 -0000 On Friday 12 December 2008 19:26, Sean Cavanaugh wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "Joe S" > Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 12:20 PM > To: "Roland Smith" > Cc: ; "Jonathan McKeown" > > Subject: Re: Release schedules > > > On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 4:01 AM, Roland Smith wrote: > >> 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? > >> > >> Two words: volunteer project > >> > >> I would propose to do away with the release schedule altogether, or make > >> it very succinct; > >> > >> next release: when it's done. > > > > What? Isn't that the Linux kernel schedule? > > > > Give me a break. The OpenBSD team of volunteers makes a new release > > every six months, with target release dates in May and November. I > > can't recall a slip of even one day. I know, this isn't OpenBSD, but > > it proves that a regular release schedule is indeed possible. > > also remember that 6.4 was being worked on at the same time. there's only a > finite number of people to spread across both projects. finalization of 7.1 > should come faster as 6.4 has been released According to http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.1R/schedule.html , the ports tree was frozen on 8 September, tagged on 22 September and unfrozen. (I see elsewhere in this thread someone saying it's still frozen - I'm not sure which statement is correct). 7.1-RELEASE should have been done a couple of weeks later - early in October for announcement on 13 October. We are now looking at a release in January. That's not a few days or even a few weeks late - it's almost four months late; and 7.1-RELEASE will ship with a ports tree that's almost 5 months out of date. Not only that - it's shipping mere weeks before the end-of-life for 7.0-RELEASE (currently 28 Feb 2009). I have been watching the web page and freebsd-stable. There has been no obvious indication of the reason for the delays or the expected duration. (For earlier releases, there was a todo page linked from the release webpage which listed areas needing more work and areas needing testing). The -RC1 release announcement finally acknowledged that there had been a number of major problems, not all of which have been fully addressed yet. As a community, we should be ashamed of this: ``volunteer effort'' just isn't a good enough excuse - and those of us who haven't volunteered need to find out how we can help get things back on track for the next release. When I first raised this, I asked if there was anything I could do to help the release engineering team with communication. Zbigniew Szalbot made a similar offer. I really think that once 7.1 is out, we (collectively) need to have a long hard look at the release process and make sure this doesn't happen again (and again and again and again - it's not the first time that I've scheduled work around release dates and ended up being embarrassed or having to do jobs twice, with a pre-release and then again when the release arrives.) Jonathan