From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 18 19:01:58 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90EBD106567E; Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:01:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5FDA88FC1C; Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:01:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [65.122.17.41]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F142246B59; Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:01:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:01:57 +0100 (BST) From: Robert Watson X-X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Jo Rhett In-Reply-To: <658B8861-1E78-4767-8D3D-8B79CC0BD45F@netconsonance.com> Message-ID: References: <1219409496.10487.22.camel@bauer.cse.buffalo.edu> <593618A3-56DA-4891-A4A0-690E9A9C5B32@netconsonance.com> <20080904133604.GB1188@atarininja.org> <47d0403c0809051319r3c82f87bhdb15ce5b0167987a@mail.gmail.com> <2742CAB1-8FF2-425D-A3B6-0658D7DB8F4D@netconsonance.com> <0C2C7E9B-61E3-4720-B76F-4745A3C963DA@netconsonance.com> <658B8861-1E78-4767-8D3D-8B79CC0BD45F@netconsonance.com> User-Agent: Alpine 1.10 (BSF 962 2008-03-14) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-stable , Wesley Shields , Nathan Way , Ben Kaduk Subject: Re: Upcoming Releases Schedule... X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:01:58 -0000 On Wed, 17 Sep 2008, Jo Rhett wrote: > Please stop avoiding even considering what people are offering to you. So far, this conversation has largely consisted of you telling us that you don't like what we're doing and demanding that we change. Let's consider three more productive avenues by which you can offer assistance with the problem of how to increase branch support lifetimes: (1) Become a contributor to the community by developing and maintaining patches against unsupported branches, especially against older releases such as 4.x and 5.x where the branches are open for commits but have fallen out of support status. I can't promise the results will immediately fall into the official project "umbrella", but consider Colin Percival's freebsd-update as an example of what can be accomplished by someone outside the project when they find a niche. What started out as an external software project (freebsd-update) is now a core system update tool, and Colin has gone from being a random guy with some code to our security officer. (2) Become a contributor to the community by identifying members of the existing developer team for whom additional funding would enable them to spend more time working on and supporting FreeBSD and providing that funding. Consider approaching the FreeBSD Foundation formally to seek matching grant funding for the project. (3) Become a contributor to the community by working with an existing or new company that provides support for FreeBSD commercially, and discussing with them ways that they could provide support for branches past their official EoL date for the project. Companies like FreeBSD Mall have strong relationships with the project, and in the past have contributed significantly to efforts such as release engineering. It's not hard to imagine a company along those lines using something along th elines of a support subscription to fund community-centered support for branches. And those companies may be able to help you identify developers who can do the work, as well as play an active role in seeking further customers with similar interests. Robert N M Watson Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge