Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 19:08:30 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.ORG> To: D J Hawkey Jr <hawkeyd@visi.com> Cc: Michael Lucas <mwlucas@FreeBSD.ORG>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Tangent for discussion: FreeBSD performs worse that Linux Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1011210183819.10640A-100000@fledge.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <20011210173206.A1795@sheol.localdomain>
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On Mon, 10 Dec 2001, D J Hawkey Jr wrote: > Don't get me wrong - I don't expect the same level of support from the > FreeBSD Project than I would from, say, Sybase or Sun. Having said that, > I think FreeBSD's is outstanding, even compared to some other commercial > *cough*Microsquish(tm)*cough* entities. Sounds good to me :-). > My current plans are to have several patchfiles, grouped by subject > (bugfix and/or enhancement), and subordinately grouped by FreeBSD > release: > > ich_sound-patch-4.2REL.udiff delayed_ack-patch-4.2REL.udiff > ich_sound-patch-4.3REL.udiff delayed_ack-patch-4.3REL.udiff > ich_sound-patch-4.3STA.udiff agp_for_xf86-patch-4.2REL.udiff > > You get the idea. It will be all over the web page(s) that the patches > are very narrowly targetted, and will list all the usual paranoia steps > that should be taken for a decent fallback position should something > fail. I have no intention of trying to emulate the FreeBSD model - not > that it's not worth emulating, but rather, I simply don't have the > resources. > > Unless it proves overwhelming, I do plan on offering my help in applying > patches to the newbie/clueless. or to already hacked sources. > > Finally, it will be perfectly clear on the web page(s) that what is > presented is not endorsed or supported by The Project, > blah-blah-woof-woof. Small patches for things like the delayed ack should be no problem. Unfortunately, many of the features I've been interested in back-porting in the past have been big features. That's why my boxes are about split between 4.4-RELEASEpXXX and 4.4-STABLE. > > Broadening the charter for the > > release branch would mean expanding the QA process. > > And, had the Core 20/20 foresight, it might well have chosen that path, > no? Granted, any one patch (and therefore, release) might well take > longer to complete, but continued previous-release support would be more > do-able. In terms of investing resources in QA, I'd rather put those resources into making sure new releases were good, and that the upgrade process was clean so that people could get to the next release easily. As we spin up for 4.5-RELEASE, any insight into that process would be much appreciated -- there's a freebsd-qa mailing list if you're interested (and not already subscribed). > Hey, I'm not taking _anything_ away from y'all; I think all the BSDs are > outstanding products. I'm just gonna see if I can't fulfill what I > percieve as a support deficiency (again, from my own perspective) in my > own little way. I don't mean to discourage you either -- rather, to explain why we haven't done some of the things you're looking at in the past. And if you manage to do it with resounding success, I certainly plan to encourage you to keep doing it. -STABLE has become a widely-supported tradition, and if there are people interested in helping make continuing support for releases easier, it could no doubt become a similarly widely-supported tradition. > PS, I'm rather honored that such an illustrious group has shown interest > enough to even discuss all this with me. Hey, I tend to think of us more as victims than illustrious. The FreeBSD core team is currently an elected body, and the members had to nominate themselves for election. That might put them in the category of "witting victims", to be contrasted with "unwitting victims", who are normally accorded some additional leniency in judgement. I think you'll also find that there's not much difference between core team members and normal FreeBSD developers. :-) Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Project robert@fledge.watson.org NAI Labs, Safeport Network Services To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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