From owner-freebsd-stable Fri Jun 7 14:21:22 1996 Return-Path: owner-stable Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id OAA22584 for stable-outgoing; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 14:21:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from macbeth.ienet.com (macbeth.ienet.com [207.78.32.52]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA22577 for ; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 14:21:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brutus.ienet.com (brutus.ienet.com [207.78.32.152]) by macbeth.ienet.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA16815; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 14:16:59 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <31B89DC7.2956@ienet.com> Date: Fri, 07 Jun 1996 14:23:51 -0700 From: Terry Lee Organization: Internet Design Group X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b4 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: p.richards@elsevier.co.uk CC: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , Johan Granlund , stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The demise of -stable References: <199606061914.VAA07596@hermes.algonet.se> <18208.834096340@time.cdrom.com> <199606071009.LAA25144@tees> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-stable@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Paul Richards wrote: > Well, I've already said to Jordan that I'd be willing to look after a -stable > branch but *only* for bug fixes and only for bug fixes that can be > done without a lot of re-architecting, those more complex bug fixes should > be done in -current. There are companies I've sold FreeBSD systems to that > actually use -stable as a bug fix tracking system, it's a hell of a lot > nicer to sup or ctm -stable than it is to deal with Sun's bug fix system > and we could make -stable a valuable resource along these lines. > > The sort of bug fixes that would be OK would be the fixes Justin has made to > the adaptec driver, the sort of thing I wouldn't like to allow would be > "choice bits" since that's not what people tracking -stable are really > looking for, they want the bugs in the functionality they have fixed not > new stuff, they'll wait until the next full release for that, their main > concern is *stability*. This would be great, and I think cover the vast majority of needs in userland. The only thing I would add is that it would also be valuable if new hardware device drivers could be committed to the tree. Of course *only* if it can be done without a lot of re-architecting, and the committing core-team member is reasonably confident that the driver will not undermine the stability of the rest of the system. I sight an example of something that has been very valuable: the fxp driver for the Intel EtherExpress Pro 10/100B Cards. Since Intel has been selling these for only $49, the driver has been invaluable to lots of FreeBSD users. When a new release comes out, you could just junk the tree. All the best, Terry -- I N T E R N E T Terry Lee, Technical Director D E S I G N 611 W. 6th St., Ste. 3201, Los Angeles, CA 90017 G R O U P 213.488.6100 voice 213.488.6101 fax http://www.mall.net mailto:terryl@ienet.com