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Date:      Tue, 01 Sep 2015 19:34:29 +0200
From:      "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs@berklix.com>
To:        =?utf-8?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=C3=B8rgrav?= <des@des.no>
Cc:        Benjamin Kaduk <kaduk@mit.edu>, freebsd-security@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Is there a policy to delay & batch errata security alerts ?
Message-ID:  <201509011734.t81HYTx8026045@fire.js.berklix.net>
In-Reply-To: Your message "Tue, 01 Sep 2015 14:02:23 %2B0200." <86zj16cpps.fsf@nine.des.no>

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=?utf-8?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=C3=B8rgrav?= wrote:
> "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs@berklix.com> writes:
> > But alerting pre existing issues just after new releases will reduce
> > security for all who can't spare enough time, so must skip the flood.
> 
> We can't always hold back a release, even when there are known issues.
> Users are waiting for it, release engineers need to move on to other
> work, and the very fact that we're holding it back with no explanation
> and no visible activity tells people that something is up.  Also, how
> long are we going to hold it?  There is *never* a point in time where
> the security team does not know of or suspect at least one issue in a
> current or upcoming release.  The line has to be drawn somewhere.  In
> the case of 10.2, the three ENs published on 2015-08-18 were for issues
> that would only affect a very small minority of users, and the expat
> issue was not raised until the release was almost complete.  The ENs and
> SAs published on 2015-08-25 were either unknown or still in the very
> early investigation phase at the time of the release.

Thanks DES,
I wasn't suggesting delaying releases, just how to smooth down alert
waves after releases.  But I had forgotten inevitably some issues
that people worked hard on to meet releases, will just miss, & often
continue to be worked hard on, so more than usual is ready to be
announced just after release.

Perhaps if core@ extend their presumed per release Thank You notes
to re@ & beyond "Thanks for rolling a release", & append "Please
take a short break, you deserve it + it will help minimise an
immediate post release notification wave".  Might that help ?

Cheers,
Julian
--
Julian Stacey, BSD Linux Unix C Sys Eng Consultant Munich http://berklix.com
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