Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 10:23:04 +0000 From: Eivind Eklund <eivind@FreeBSD.org> To: Sam <sah@softcardsystems.com> Cc: freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: AoE for 4.x Message-ID: <20040924102303.GF61631@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0409231519030.19882@athena> References: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0409211531450.32120@athena> <41508FEB.6030203@elischer.org> <Pine.LNX.4.60.0409231044380.19882@athena> <20040923191423.GE61631@FreeBSD.org> <Pine.LNX.4.60.0409231519030.19882@athena>
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On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 04:03:58PM -0500, Sam wrote:
> >>I'm hoping to have a 5.x driver ready in the next month or two,
> >>probably patched against 5.3-stable when it's ready.
> >
> >Drivers go into the system in the order
> >-current
> >-stable
> >
> >This is basically the order we ALWAYS force, to avoid people doing
> >development on older branches and a continual loss of functionality.
> >
> >This means that you (or somebody else) will need to port it to -current
> >before it can go into 5.3-stable.
>
> The flip side of this argument is that I can't reasonably
> ask customers to pull up -current sources to use a storage
> product. They've got to be able to rely on it and I've got
> to be able to manage the service calls.
Of course. This isn't the flip side, though - it's a argument about
something completely different. The way this usually goes is that
(A) Somebody develop a driver for whatever branch they can easily do so
on - either -current or -stable.
(A.2) Port it to -current if it was not developed there
(C) Get it committed to -current
(D) Let it sit in -current for a while, fixing any bugs that may turn
up
(D.2) Port the driver to -stable if it was not developed there (if it
was developed there, the person just provide the patches for that
branch with the bugs found since commit fixed)
(D) Commit it into the relevant -stable branch
Often, for author-maintained drivers, the driver over time gets some
ifdefs etc added to make it possible to use the essentially same sources
on both the -stable and -current branch.
But the commit to -current is always done before -stable, because
FreeBSD (as a vendor) will not allow the backwards slippage that WOULD
happen if we did not strictly enforce this.
> Eventually I'll have patches against a -stable that's close enough
> to a -current that the patch will apply to both. I'm hoping 5.3
> will be this way.
You will probably never have a better chance than 5.3. My guess is that
the next -stable branching (6.x-stable) will be at least two years in
the future, and 5.4+-stable will be much further diverged from
6.0-current than 5.3-stable will be.
Please take this as friendly information; we have policies that we have
to follow to keep the quality of FreeBSD high, and unfortunately these
have to add some extra hardship for authors :-(
Eivind.
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