From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 17 21:18:47 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9D4CB106564A for ; Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:18:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from harmony.bsdimp.com (bsdimp.com [199.45.160.85]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1B3DE8FC0A for ; Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:18:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [10.30.101.53] ([209.117.142.2]) (authenticated bits=0) by harmony.bsdimp.com (8.14.4/8.14.3) with ESMTP id q0HL9kBw006170 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NO); Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:09:48 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1084) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From: Warner Losh In-Reply-To: Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:09:40 -0700 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <9E283165-BD56-4DBF-9799-757C475815FB@bsdimp.com> References: To: John Kozubik X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1084) X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.0.1 (harmony.bsdimp.com [10.0.0.6]); Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:09:48 -0700 (MST) Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Mark Felder Subject: Re: FreeBSD has serious problems with focus, longevity, and lifecycle X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:18:47 -0000 On Jan 17, 2012, at 11:12 AM, John Kozubik wrote: > Again, I'm not suggesting more snapshots - I am suggesting more real, = bona fide releases. This will help people. I tend to agree with you. Our release engineering process isn't serving = the needs of users as much as it once did. When Walnut Creek was = running release engineering, we had releases often because they wanted = to make money from their subscriptions. This produced reasonably spaced = minor releases and except for 4-5, decently spaced major releases. Even = after the torch passed from walnut creek to others, there was still = either residual pressures to make the releases happen, or inherited = mindset that keep on the same pace. Today we have lost our way. We have no major vendor pushing the process = along to make it happen faster. We have no reason to get things done = faster or differently than the volunteers are doing it. So we're = languishing. 9.0 took forever to get out, and we didn't do stop-gap 8.x = releases. Our port collection has also gotten bigger since those = by-gone days so doing a release of the whole ports tree is taking longer = to QA, so pressure to do it more often meets up with resource = constraints. Our binary update tools lag considerably compared to = Linux, and there's a big reluctance to whole-heartedly embrace PBI as a = possible solution. Maybe pkgng will help there. Maybe the various = attempts to get ABI stability to allow for easier decoupling of FreeBSD = base and FreeBSD ports releases. But we have a real problem here. One I don't have easy answers for how = to solve. One that likely has many other root-causes than the few I've = cherry picked for this reply. The underlying balances that allowed the = early project to succeed have shifted, but we've not shifted with them. Warner