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Date:      Sun, 17 Dec 1995 12:50:34 -0800
From:      Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@freefall.freebsd.org>
To:        current@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD-current-stable ???
Message-ID:  <19611.819233434@freefall.freebsd.org>

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> >> Hi FreeBSD core team !
> >> 
> >> [ Possibly I'm speaking for many other people here ]
> >It's possible.
> 
> Possibly for non-developers :-).

likely so..
> >> 
> >> Generally I would be interested to help testing and debugging new
> >> FreeBSD-current features. But when reading the -current mailing list, 
> >> FreeBSD-current, so to say FreeBSD-2.2 in it's early days, seems to be
>                                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> an instability nightmare. Perhaps this expression is a bit oversized,
> >> but please understand my point of view.
> >I do dissagree. -current is exceptionally stable for what it is...
> 
> I agree with Julian.

actually even more stable than in a long time :-)

> >I run -currrent (up until last week) on my machine at TFS.com
> >and I have had NO troubles with it...
> 
> I have had only one serious problem (2 core dumps apparently caused by
> some vm change in the last month).

I have some bogons, but they are quite likely HW actually.  (Don't worry
Rod, I just have not got around to flash the boot-patition correctly :-).

I would like to release some steam here.

<FLAME,MEDIUM TOAST>
If we are to keep abreast with the world, (we're presently running a mere
5 years behind schedule I think), we need to move some things a long way.

If changes like devfs, protoizing & staticization are supposed to be
commited as flaw-less, then we might as well close shop and run Linux.

-current is generally compilable, it's perfectly stable for long stretches
of time, but right after any major release, a lot of saved up powder
gets ignited with -current as target, and that is simply the way
it is.

If somebody were to stand forward and say, "I'm willing to maintain a tag
on the CVS-tree which runs a little behind HEAD, and which is stable",
(firest I would question that persons sanity actually), I would think
that we may go for it, but any more administrative work, and the core-
team will melt.

I as a FreeBSD hacker, and as a -core in particular, try to do my best,
and that is it really.  I cannot do it any better.  Sometimes you 
break code you didn't know were there.  I have found so much dead code
during my staticization sweep that I'm positively sure nobody else,
(including superhumans like Terry :-) knows all of our source and
how it fits together, to a level of detail that would allow us to 
run a "safe shop" in -current.

Maybe when the kernel gets more modular, this will be less of a problem,
but now, that's the way it is.

</FLAME>

If you want to help us, but only have one machine, run -stable (2.1.0
presently), and work in user-space.

(If you only have one machine, kernel-hacking is very dangerous anyway.)

User-space isn't any more boring than the kernel.  If you don't belive
me do this:
	cd /usr/src
	make CFLAGS=-Wall
plenty to do :-(

FreeBSD needs a lot more than kernel hackers.  Go for it :-)

Poul-Henning



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