From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 17 18:58:07 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BA2EA106564A for ; Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:58:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from hugo@barafranca.com) Received: from mail.barafranca.com (mail.barafranca.com [67.213.67.47]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 661618FC19 for ; Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:58:07 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (unknown [172.16.100.24]) by mail.barafranca.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 92C32B30; Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:58:06 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at barafranca.com Received: from mail.barafranca.com ([172.16.100.24]) by localhost (mail.barafranca.com [172.16.100.24]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id JvdHhQir8DjJ; Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:57:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [192.168.1.1] (a89-152-168-54.cpe.netcabo.pt [89.152.168.54]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.barafranca.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C7236B1E; Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:57:27 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <4F15C48F.7020302@barafranca.com> Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:57:19 +0000 From: Hugo Silva User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101208 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ivan Voras References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Tom Evans , freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD has serious problems with focus, longevity, and lifecycle X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:58:07 -0000 On 01/17/12 12:42, Ivan Voras wrote: > On 17 January 2012 13:02, Tom Evans wrote: > Almost certainly yes. The current release process involves src, ports > and docs teams. Would you and other RELEASE users be happy with simple > periodic snapshots off the STABLE branches, not much different from > tracking STABLE? The only benefit I see would be a light-weight > opportunity for testing which would probably end up being implemented > by moving to date-based tags (e.g. if a critical bug is found and the > fix MFC-ed, the "current" tag would be advanced to "$today")? If (a cluster of) new features have made it to stable in the mean time and have been tested and generally recognized as being in working condition, my opinion is that a release should be up for consideration: For starters, it's so much easier from a server management point of view.. easier to memorize and compare 8.5-RELEASE vs 8.6-RELEASE ("now with blah-ZFS features and cpuset added to rc.d, bind updated to blah, openssh updated to version bleh, insert other usual suspects here") than it is to track stable. I don't remember what was added to -STABLE 3 months ago. It doesn't appear to be as much of a good starting point ("good snapshot"), compared to a release either. I like to know where I'm standing when setting up a new system, and a release is a convenient starting point. Also, one can always check what was added to a release on freebsd.org, while for -stable some digging has to be performed. For production servers, I'd rather run most servers with known good release branches. Sure, there were times when I needed something from the stable branch and decided to use it, but when the next release comes out then it's time to revert back to the release branch. Come to think about it, those days are pretty much gone since 4.x (incidentally, many of us who've stuck with FreeBSD for this long think of 4.x as an epic series). Running different -stable snapshots from different times results in systems running different versions of the operating system, in my opinion this is bound to bring problems (more stuff can go wrong). It's so much easier to have a look at ganglia or cacti or clusterit or anything similar and contrast the OS version and architecture. Running -stable, not so much. Is it stable from 2 days ago or a year? And what has changed since then? Furthermore, releases get way more attention in freebsd's own webpage, not to mention the cascading effect that has. You don't see a lot of articles about new blah features on "9-stable snapshot dated Jan 17 2012", but there are many about 9.0-RELEASE being out in the street. This also brings more visibility to the project. Maybe I'm horribly mistaken about the releasographics of production FreeBSD users, but I think most of us tend to run -release for the reasons mentioned above, and perhaps some more that I'm neglecting right now.