Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 23:33:11 -0700 From: Steve Lumos <slumos@nevada.edu> To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: is "stable" "stable"? Message-ID: <200107230634.AIV82906@100m.mpr200-1.esr.lvcm.net> In-Reply-To: Message from Jordan Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.ORG> of "Sat, 21 Jul 2001 13:55:10 PDT." <20010721135510Y.jkh@freebsd.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Jordan Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.ORG>:
>Very well said. This should be added to the handbook. :)
In fact, let's look at some key words from that chapter:
-CURRENT: "bleeding edge", "working sources", "un-compilable",
"active testers"
-STABLE: "low key", "conservative", "commercial user",
"fully compilable and stable"
There's also language in the -STABLE section that implies that bugs
are treated as emergency situations. Do you *really* wonder why it's
"so difficult for people to understand"?
It is very easy for a reasonable person to read (or more likely skim
[tell me you don't do it]) the description of -STABLE in the handbook
and conclude that it means what it sounds like, and then feel
bamboozled when they get here.
Steve
>From: Lamont Granquist <lamont@scriptkiddie.org>
>Subject: Re: is "stable" "stable"?
>Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 11:27:01 -0700 (PDT)
>
>>
>> On Sat, 21 Jul 2001, A. L. Meyers wrote:
>> > Having followed the postings here for a few weeks it seems, at
>> > least occasionally, that "stable" appears to be a bit less than
>> > "stable".
>>
>> You are doing a CVS checkout of a source tree that is getting updates
>> on a daily basis. If you have ever done this in a development environment
>> before, you should know that absolute 100% stability in any such an
>> environment is never, ever going to happen.
>>
>> If you want the latest -stable sources which *are* stable, then you
>> really need to checkout sources on a fresh machine, build your
>> distribution and spend a few days regression testing the features of the
>> OS which are important to you. You should then roll out the build to
>> your staging platform and give it at least a week or two. Following that
>> you should put it in the load balancing rotation on your production site,
>> and then gradually phase it in as you gain more confidence.
>>
>> Which, of course, you should be doing anyway.
>>
>> If you want better stability, then checkout the actual 4.x releases with
>> the security fixes. Those have actually been frozen and then bugfixed for
>> stability. They should be better.
>>
>> Why is this so difficult for people to understand? *ANY* time you are
>> checking out the head of a development branch (even one where developers
>> are supposedly being "more careful") then you should expect to
>> occasionally see problems. People will break the build. People will have
>> insufficiently tested their code and subsystems will break. I guarantee
>> you that none of the FBSD developers have a sufficient testing matrix to
>> *ensure* that the changes which are checked into the top of the tree will
>> run on every platform out there (consider for a moment just how big the
>> x86 testing matrix is). I'm pretty damned impressed that -stable works as
>> well as it does (kudos for the developers).
>>
>>
>> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
>> with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
>
>To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
>with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200107230634.AIV82906>