From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 13 22:38:25 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (unknown [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 21E0C1065672 for ; Wed, 13 Jun 2012 22:38:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rmacklem@uoguelph.ca) Received: from esa-scalar.mail.uoguelph.ca (esa-scalar.mail.uoguelph.ca [66.199.40.18]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B6A148FC18 for ; Wed, 13 Jun 2012 22:38:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: from zcs3.mail.uoguelph.ca (new.mail.uoguelph.ca [131.104.93.37]) by esa-scalar.mail.uoguelph.ca (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id q5DMcEYq025157; Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:38:14 -0400 Received: from zcs3.mail.uoguelph.ca (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by zcs3.mail.uoguelph.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2DD1DB3F62; Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:38:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:38:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Rick Macklem To: Mark Saad Message-ID: <1796451368.1752664.1339627094133.JavaMail.root@erie.cs.uoguelph.ca> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Originating-IP: [172.17.91.202] X-Mailer: Zimbra 6.0.10_GA_2692 (ZimbraWebClient - FF3.0 (Win)/6.0.10_GA_2692) Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Upcoming release schedule - 8.4 ? 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: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 22:38:25 -0000 Mark Saad wrote: > I'll share my 2 cents here, as someone who maintains a decent sided > FreeBSD install. > > 1. FreeBSD needs to make end users more comfortable with using a > Dot-Ohh release; and at the time of the dot-ohh release > a timeline for the next point releases should be made. * > > 2. Having three supported releases is showing issues , and brings up > the point of why was 9.0 not released as 8.3 ? ** > > 3. The end users appear to want less releases, and for them to be > supported longer . > > * A rough outline would do and it should be on the main release page > http://www.freebsd.org/releases/ > > ** Yes I understand that 9.0 had tons of new features that were added > and its not exactly a point release upgrade from 8.2 , however one can > argue that if it were there would be less yelling about when version X > is going to be EOL'd and when will version Y be released. > One thought here might be to revisit the "Kernel APIs can only change on a major release" rule. It seems to me that some KPIs could be "frozen" for longer periods than others, maybe? For example: - If device driver KPIs were frozen for a longer period of time, there wouldn't be the challenge of backporting drivers for newer hardware to the older systems. vs - The VFS/VOP interface. As far as I know, there are currently 2 out of source tree file systems (OpenAFS and FUSE) and there are FreeBSD committers involved in both of these. As such, making a VFS change within a minor release cycle might not be a big problem, so long as all the file systems in the source tree are fixed and the maintainers for the above 2 file systems were aware of the change and when they needed to release a patch/rebuild their module. - Similarily, are there any out of source tree network stacks? It seems that this rule is where the controversy of major vs minor release changes comes in? Just a thought, rick > > > -- > mark saad | nonesuch@longcount.org > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"