From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Dec 22 12:38:36 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 278A21065673 for ; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:38:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from uqs@spoerlein.net) Received: from acme.spoerlein.net (acme.spoerlein.net [IPv6:2a01:4f8:131:23c2::1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B085E8FC12 for ; Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:38:35 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (acme.spoerlein.net [IPv6:2a01:4f8:131:23c2::1]) by acme.spoerlein.net (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id oBMCcY9e056268 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:38:34 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from uqs@spoerlein.net) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=spoerlein.net; s=dkim200908; t=1293021514; bh=xYVIoymjFDEVdcnnIbXfXWhix95SsPVJWe0ORi1vHcM=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:In-Reply-To; b=IQhQSiXHzyEDJNRHfn57JLghTmKg43BUlcilv4IJ2oBCQaLXyqSFDfqzikJ7p+u0P 8Luc/MP0N9Uv5A5Jy5h8giZFLOEyZ4vgV3n5w5hWHPHCxjZT22KRJsvrM7Wt5Edqfi ipkLU/USP/cHrH23uU6xeZEJ8VPHCnVG/UlWRgZc= Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:38:34 +0100 From: Ulrich =?utf-8?B?U3DDtnJsZWlu?= To: Oliver Fromme Message-ID: <20101222123834.GN23098@acme.spoerlein.net> Mail-Followup-To: Oliver Fromme , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org References: <201012220852.oBM8q2Qi039123@lurza.secnetix.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <201012220852.oBM8q2Qi039123@lurza.secnetix.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Schedule for releases X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:38:36 -0000 On Wed, 22.12.2010 at 09:52:03 +0100, Oliver Fromme wrote: > Erik Cederstrand wrote: > > Den 21/12/2010 kl. 23.28 skrev Robert Watson: > > > Looking at 7.x, I'm struck by how much it has slowed down. > > > There's a significant user community, but not a significant > > > developer community. > > > > Which pretty much sums up a dilemma in the development of > > FreeBSD, I think. Developers want users to try out their new > > shiny stuff, but users don't want to spend time upgrading. > > For me, personally, one significant problem is that I don't > have the resources to easily run several versions of FreeBSD > at home. > > I have a stable/8 installation, but I can't easily install > another one (i.e. stable/7) at the same time, which would > be required for testing and support. Well, I could set up > a dual-boot environment somehow with a second disk, but > that's time-consuming and annoying. > > I also have to confess that my motivation to spend time > supporting an "old" branch is somewhat low because I don't > use that branch myself anymore for some time already. > Probably quite a few developers are in a similar situation, > I guess. I think this is the core "problem". Statistics[1] show, that most developers run some form of -CURRENT and also have some machines running the latest -STABLE tree. So, naturally, no-one is too thrilled about testing stuff for the pre-latest -STABLE tree. We should not try to have two stable branches overlap for that long. We are spreading our resources too thin here. CURRENT+STABLE makes sense, always. CURRENT+STABLE+STABLE might be nice for vendors, but in the end it's the developers doing the work, and they mostly only care about the one of the STABLES. We should not delude ourselves into thinking we can easily support two STABLE branches, that's just not happening. Uli [1] I just made this statistic up.