Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 00:29:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Barton <DougB@FreeBSD.org> To: "Gary W. Swearingen" <underway@comcast.net> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The Old Way Was Better Message-ID: <20030908001530.T22654@znfgre.qbhto.arg> In-Reply-To: <4k7k4kjbpz.k4k@mail.comcast.net> References: <3F5B4AA9.1000003@lpthe.jussieu.fr> <4k7k4kjbpz.k4k@mail.comcast.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sun, 7 Sep 2003, Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
> Michel Talon <talon@lpthe.jussieu.fr> writes:
>
> > In my opinion, the 4.* series should not
> > have been maintained so long (except for security fixes), it stresses
> > too much the available developer workforce.
Developers work on whatever branches it suits their fancy to work on.
> So when should non-security 4.* work have stopped? When I started
> using FreeBSD, the 5.0 target was Nov'2001, IIRC, and it was supposed
> to have features than are not yet in 5-CURRENT.
The decision to delay any kind of release in the 5.x branch was the
right one to make. The fact that it's still missing features that we
wanted to have 2 years ago should give you an idea of why. :)
> How long should 4.* users have to live with a moribund OS?
4.x users don't HAVE to live with anything. They are free to use any
other version, or any other operating system they want to use if 4.x
doesn't meet their needs.
As for the rest of your post, it's all very interesting, but incredibly
unlikely to happen. The creation of the RELENG_4_X branches solved the
immediate need for a "stable branch plus security fixes." 5.x is still
-current, and while we do need to be more careful with our marketing
(and more careful with what goes into a 5.x release), massive branch
renaming just isn't going to happen, nor is expanding the number of
branches going to help.
If there is anything here you don't like, feel free to start coding
fixes to the things you don't like. Meanwhile, trying to tell people who
are volunteering their time how and where to do so is incredibly
unlikely to be successful.
Doug
--
This .signature sanitized for your protection
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20030908001530.T22654>