From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Jun 8 01:25:54 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id BAA07265 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 01:25:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from GndRsh.aac.dev.com (GndRsh.aac.dev.com [198.145.92.241]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id BAA07088; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 01:25:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rgrimes@localhost) by GndRsh.aac.dev.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA13112; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 01:25:15 -0700 From: "Rodney W. Grimes" Message-Id: <199606080825.BAA13112@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> Subject: Re: The -stable problem: my view To: davidg@Root.COM Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 01:25:15 -0700 (PDT) Cc: nate@sri.MT.net, hackers@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.org, FreeBSD-current@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: <199606080540.WAA12681@Root.COM> from David Greenman at "Jun 7, 96 10:40:28 pm" X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL11 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >> We need a new model. One that keeps the quality high and one > >> that doesn't prevent me from doing new development. > > > >Do you have any suggestions? Would creating a new 'stable' tree today > >be even remotely acceptable? > > I think that's an interesting idea, but lets allow the issue to get a fair > airing (at least a week or two) before taking any steps in this direction. I have heard some mistatments, and incorrect assumptions about what -stable was/is, when it was created, and how it was _suppose_ to work. The above ``idea'' posted by Nate, is infact the _closest_ thing that has been said to what I had intended to occur when I set this up some 13 months ago. Here is a more accurate history, from the horses mouse so to speak since it was I who proposed this whole thing, and it was I how did the CVS work to create them. a) I merged RELENG_2_0_5 (a branch) into the HEAD, then pulled the RELENG_2_1_0 branch out so that work could begin on the next CDROM release at 2.1, which was suppose to take a month or so to do, it dragged, but did get done with a fairly small delta set (do a cvs rdiff -rRELENG_2_1_0_BP -rRELENG_2_1_0_RELEASE to see it). Mean while developement work was to (and has) continue on the HEAD branch. b) The RELENG_2_1_0 branch was to continue life as a _maintance_ / _bugfix_ branch known as -stable to support those users out there who needed this. It was _NEVER_ meant to last longer than 4 months (remember, back then everyone still wanted to see 2 to 4 releases a year.) It was _never_ meant to have a _SECOND_ full blown release rolled out of it, unless it was down within the 3 to 4 month window. c) It was the intention that some 3 months after 2.1 rolled out the door that the release engineering team for 2.2 _should_ be keeping an eye on HEAD to decide _when_ to pop down the RELENG_2_2_0_BP point tag, and start the RELENG_2_2_0 branch. [Never happened, and probably should have been what happened when Jordan attempted to do the MEGA merge of HEAD into RELENG_2_1_0.] d) After the release team had played with this new RELENG_2_2_0 branch for a week or so getting into a buildable state it would be rolled out in alpha form to start the alpha/beta/release testing. e) Once RELENG_2_2_0 was actually released (ie, RELENG_2_2_0_RELEASE had be applied as a tag) it would become the -stable bits. A flaw in my logic was that I called the mailing lists -stable, and the sup collections, etc that as well. I should have called it all branch-2.1, as now there is no easy way, except to have a ``flag day'', to replace the -stable sup/ctm collections on Freefall. > We really need to kill this thread: I had 800 emails in my inbox today, and > this is about twice the usual amount. I can't deal with this much email; I've > been sitting here for the past 5 hours reading it all and I'm getting really > sick of it. > > -DG > > David Greenman > Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project > -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation Company Reliable computers for FreeBSD