From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 8 13:15:14 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C632E16A403 for ; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 13:15:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Received: from ezekiel.daleco.biz (southernuniform.com [66.76.92.18]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B611C43D5C for ; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 13:15:12 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Received: from [192.168.2.2] ([69.27.149.254]) by ezekiel.daleco.biz (8.13.4/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k38DE41H001249; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 08:14:25 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Message-ID: <4437B711.9010608@daleco.biz> Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 08:13:53 -0500 From: Kevin Kinsey User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20060127 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Robert Huff References: <43461.208.11.134.3.1144443260.squirrel@mail.dfwlp.com> <20060407213423.GB96006@gothmog.pc> <200604071911.49662.freebsd@dfwlp.com> <44373920.5080006@daleco.biz> <17463.16480.282250.826517@jerusalem.litteratus.org> In-Reply-To: <17463.16480.282250.826517@jerusalem.litteratus.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: a few questions and concepts 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, 08 Apr 2006 13:15:14 -0000 Robert Huff wrote: >Kevin Kinsey writes: > > > >> It's somewhat interesting (to me) that the even numbered releases >> seem to have had longer and perhaps more successful runs than the >> odd numbered ones. 5.X, in particular, seemed short to me. >> >> > > Two comments: > 1) Sample size = 2. > > You may need to explain the math for that. 6 code trees, divided by either the number of odds or evens, equals 3. Still a small sample size, to be sure, (but I doubt FreeBSD will ever have a large enough number of released branches to ever approach anything like the number of samples that would be required for statistical "proof" of such a casual observation), and 6.x isn't yet "done" (for that matter, neither is 5.X, but it's close), but I'm pretty sure that 5.x will be shorter lived than 4, and probably shorter than 6.x, though I imagine they'll try to get 7.X out "faster" than 5.x was.... > 2) 4 has run long because it took forever to get 5 out the >door. While appreciative of the advances made, way too many useful >things got delayed "waiting for 5.0". > > > Robert Huff > > Agreed. But I still see, casually speaking, an alternating length of life, with 1.x and 3.x and 5.x lasting notably shorter amounts of time than their even-numbered successors. I think that core/releng or someone has expressed a desire to not delay 7.x as long as 5.x was delayed, so there's a chance that this "trend" could be broken. However, I take comfort in the fact that whatever branch it is, it's not gonna be -RELEASEd until it's ready. (And, of course, we could bat that one around all day, too, but it's really starting to feel like overkill --- all I made was a side comment about the relative lengths of the numbered code branches). It's a generalization, and a speculation, and merely an observation; and, I think it's interesting to generalize and observe nonetheless, but it's not measurable nor quantifiable, and not worthy of such effort to sustain a discussion. KDK P.S. The real hole I see in my "conjecture" is that, in reality, the 5.X branch has been around a long time, being tagged at the time that 4.0 was -RELEASED; however, it lived most of its life as -CURRENT .... -- An idealist is one who helps the other fellow to make a profit. -- Henry Ford