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From: Mark Blackman <mark@exonetric.com>
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To: Mark Linimon <linimon@lonesome.com>
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Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Adrian Chadd <adrian@freebsd.org>,
	Mark Saad <nonesuch@longcount.org>, John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
Subject: Re: FreeBSD has serious problems with focus, longevity,
	and lifecycle
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On 27 Jan 2012, at 03:26, Mark Linimon wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 10:52:44PM +0000, Mark Blackman wrote:
>> I suspect poor old RE is putting too much work into BETAs and RCs for
>> point releases.=20
>=20
> The counter-argument is that we have a lot more leeway to make =
mistakes
> on a .0 release.  We're not going to be cut any slack at all for =
shipping
> a badly regressed point release.
>=20
> Some minor regressions are inevitable in software, but they do indeed
> need to be minor.
>=20
> For how we're doing with regressions in general, see:
>=20
>  =
http://people.freebsd.org/~linimon/studies/prs/prs_for_tag_regression.html=

>=20
> Now, it's true that many of the recent PRs are against 9.0, and many =
of
> the ones that aren't may be stale (certainly most of the pre-2010 =
ones),
> but these are the types of things that users really notice and become
> unhappy about.

All good points, although I'd guess there's some diminishing returns =
argument
for progressive RCs/BETAs, however probably only the RE team have a good =
feeling
for the sweet spot.

- Mark