From owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Sat Jul 25 01:23:16 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 70BF39AAF0B for ; Sat, 25 Jul 2015 01:23:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lifanov@mail.lifanov.com) Received: from mail.lifanov.com (mail.lifanov.com [206.125.175.12]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 557BBB25; Sat, 25 Jul 2015 01:23:16 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lifanov@mail.lifanov.com) Received: by mail.lifanov.com (Postfix, from userid 58) id EA0651F68B6; Fri, 24 Jul 2015 21:23:13 -0400 (EDT) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.1 (2015-04-28) on mail.lifanov.com X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,SHORTCIRCUIT shortcircuit=ham autolearn=disabled version=3.4.1 Received: from app.lifanov.com (chat.lifanov.com [206.125.175.13]) by mail.lifanov.com (Postfix) with ESMTPA id 690351CB365; Fri, 24 Jul 2015 21:23:13 -0400 (EDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 21:23:12 -0400 From: Nikolai Lifanov To: Glen Barber Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: help me understand latest->quarterly pkg.conf switch In-Reply-To: <20150724212757.GE84931@FreeBSD.org> References: <20150724212757.GE84931@FreeBSD.org> Message-ID: X-Sender: lifanov@mail.lifanov.com User-Agent: Roundcube Webmail/1.1.2 X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 01:23:16 -0000 On 2015-07-24 17:27, Glen Barber wrote: > On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 05:15:52PM -0400, Nikolai Lifanov wrote: >> I noticed that in stable/10, /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf was switched from >> using >> latest package set to whichever one that is "quarterly" word is >> pointing to >> at the moment. What is the motivation for this change? >> > > This was not done in the stable/10 branch, it was done in releng/10.2. > >> Quarterly package sets are useful if the end-user is able to pick >> which one >> to pull from and there is some amount of time of support overlap so >> that the >> user has time to validate the new package set and switch his systems >> to it >> (like what is done with pkgsrc). As-is, "quarterly" works just like >> "latest" >> from end-user perspective, but for most of the lifecycle packages are >> outdated and there is a massive update bomb four times per year. >> >> Port branches are still valuable to those building their own packages, >> since >> they can support the previous (unsupported by the project) branch, >> backporting fixes manually, while validating and upgrading to the new >> one. >> But, what is the value of the quarterly package set as-is and what is >> the >> value of switching to this set by default? >> > > In general, the quarterly package set is less prone to having build > failures, since the changes in the branch are (by intent) less > intrusive, while still receiving security updates. It is analogous to > the stable or releng branches in src, and how they compare to head. > > (This will be noted in the final 10.2-RELEASE announcement, as well as > the release notes, and will also include instructions on how to switch > to the 'latest' branch if that is what is desired.) > > Glen Cool, thanks for the explanation! What would be really amazing to see are quarterly branches that the end user can switch between, like pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/2015Q3 -> pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/2015Q4 when he is ready, with at least a little bit of overlap. Thanks Glen! - Nikolai Lifanov