From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 17 18:35:14 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2233316A404 for ; Thu, 17 May 2007 18:35:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from craig@feniz.gank.org) Received: from ion.gank.org (ion.gank.org [69.55.238.164]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0CC7D13C448 for ; Thu, 17 May 2007 18:35:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from craig@feniz.gank.org) Received: by ion.gank.org (Postfix, from userid 1001) id C1BF41124E; Thu, 17 May 2007 13:35:11 -0500 (CDT) Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 13:35:10 -0500 From: Craig Boston To: Kevin Oberman Message-ID: <20070517183510.GB42562@nowhere> Mail-Followup-To: Craig Boston , Kevin Oberman , Chris , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org References: <3aaaa3a0705170830g46487cc7occc8a51b82a9118b@mail.gmail.com> <20070517172415.06DEF45042@ptavv.es.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20070517172415.06DEF45042@ptavv.es.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i Cc: Chris , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: fast rate of major FreeBSD releases to STABLE X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 18:35:14 -0000 On Thu, May 17, 2007 at 10:24:15AM -0700, Kevin Oberman wrote: > > The recent ports freeze has also concerned me, this is the longest > > ports freeze I have witnessed since I started using FreeBSD years ago > > and its for a desktop element of the os, does it matter if servers > > running FreeBSD have to remain on vulnerable versions of ports as a > > result of this? > > Now this is totally bogus. The freeze before the 6.0 release was VERY > long and several have been longer than this one has been so far. I think the complaint may be more a result of this being a deeper freeze than normal. When ports is frozen before a release, it is often still possible to get things like security fixes and minor updates approved and committed. The only time it's completely frozen is during branching, which typically doesn't take very long. I don't know if portmgr@ has approved any commits during the xorg freeze or not. Even if so I suspect the "critical" bar may be higher this time due to the need to manually merge changes into the git repository. That said, it's a major undertaking and there are valid arguments on both sides. Hopefully it will be done soon (keep in mind this is still a volunteer project!) > ??? I should leave this to others, but in the past FreeBSD has received > heavy criticism for taking too long between releases. I guess you just > can't win. Yes, V5 development is pretty well at an end (though V5 was > not one of FreeBSD's better releases and I never used it on production > systems), but V6 support will continue for quite a while. One thing to keep in mind is that with shorter releases, it's a lot easier to move from one release to the next. It was a Very Big Deal to upgrade from 4.x to 5.x and required lots of pain and planning, mostly because so much had changed. Going from 5.x to 6.x was much easier -- for those upgrading from source it wasn't much different than point releases on the 5.x line. I recently upgraded a 6.x server to 7-CURRENT to test out zfs and again it was just like cvsupping and building stable. There's some library version issues, but those should be resolved before the 7.0 release happens. It's still nowhere near the massive undertaking from 4 to 5. > I am VERY sure that RE and the developers NEVER want to go through that > again. Nor the users ;) > No one who has any experience is going to drop 7.0 on any critical > system. I run it on one desktop and my laptop. I am NOT going to > install 7.0 on my DNS servers or any other critical system. I'm running -current on my home file server, which is fairly critical to me, but then again I'm obsessive about backups, which helps :) I don't think I'd be brave enough to try it on business-critical systems though, which I suspect is your meaning. Craig