From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 25 20:15:54 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 78BB8E6A for ; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:15:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from grarpamp@gmail.com) Received: from mail-vc0-x22f.google.com (mail-vc0-x22f.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:400c:c03::22f]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3D8FA20DD for ; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:15:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-vc0-f175.google.com with SMTP id ia10so158816vcb.6 for ; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:15:53 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=f1y7wf9GB7jR1ONVx2kFkoluHhvCX1GfnoNHJUtpro4=; b=B8dE0XNNt2d4m3JH10ZSSAYo+ZLgj0tb2riyMBwE7mzhdJ4ymSSgc57ZdIGd5Nr99x r/5LztgcSIBGUNcit9dK3iw5+Azwj/O2vnE3GfMXXjx3GxSAHxwB5UKu7WC1LU4eAQyN QS7arTqDyPw3xXH6M0ifHEAMnmJ5JKnY/A331ozV7kewau/3LyWTuhqw5ty9b8y56OIg Gib46P46kiNWJziOffh/q2BV0KjEk53m+orsj0TyVfTeEDoD/7zowiM8nC4pkxBYVc02 vPJojRpCapPqAP8bPjGdX3pKWSd1k4omYd9w0IvGdAdKno8riS3Z+cVY9mz3DyFMfvM8 Injg== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.52.108.230 with SMTP id hn6mr11529037vdb.28.1380140153245; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:15:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.221.4.137 with HTTP; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:15:53 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 16:15:53 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: Package build out to FTP distribution process From: grarpamp To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:15:54 -0000 Can someone please describe the FreeBSD package building and publishing to FTP process? Consider the following representative directories... ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-9.2-release/All/ ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-9-stable/All/ I'm not really interested in the release hierarchy, since other than some kind of urgent fix, it has been a onetime build and publish event and it ages with every future commit. It's process is fairly obvious. Now for the 'stable' hierarchy, that is updated over time. But how, under what policy and process, etc? What determines when an update is pushed out? Are there some minimum set of pkg that must build for it to be pushed? There must be some interim builds going on, where is the output from those? Can it be made accessible via web? Why is the update frequency so low and erratic? Is there some kind of strategic signoff behind the name 'stable' or is it just a reasonably named dumping area for a build from ports HEAD? Are there groups focused on running builds and squashing dependency checkpoints? I think of all the users who wish to use packages but perhaps cannot because... - months can go by before a popular package reappears from having gone missing. - the port itself may be a current version, which means somewhere there is a good build with it, but the published package is a rather old version for a long time. - something in ports may not appear as a package but may not be pkg banned, perhaps due to the above. So in general, what is the process behind populating the stable hierarchies of packages? And how can and what are the improvements to be made? Perhaps specifically regarding frequency and completeness. But also in general. Is this all wiki'd somewhere?