From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 17 09:47:19 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 071D91065673 for ; Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:47:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D313A8FC0C for ; Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:47:18 +0000 (UTC) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [65.122.17.41]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6C1EE46B17; Mon, 17 Sep 2012 05:47:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:47:18 +0100 (BST) From: Robert Watson X-X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Konstantin Belousov In-Reply-To: <20120916053523.GJ37286@deviant.kiev.zoral.com.ua> Message-ID: References: <20120916053523.GJ37286@deviant.kiev.zoral.com.ua> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: Eitan Adler , arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Fallout from the CVS discussion 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: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:47:19 -0000 On Sun, 16 Sep 2012, Konstantin Belousov wrote: > On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 04:37:49PM -0400, Eitan Adler wrote: > > Removing the whole CVS discussion above, want to answer to seemingly > unrelated note in your email, which I see as continuing very disturbing > trend. > >> However, -CURRENT is not meant to be a production system. > > It is simply not true. CURRENT shall never be knowingly put into a state > where it cannot be used for the 'production-grade' use, whatever it means. > We do accept changes are so disruptive that some unknown fallout is > expected, since otherwise developers cannot make any significant progress. > > But introducing known breakage is simply not acceptable. Doing so shrinks > the already limited testing base we have for HEAD. I'd argue that one of the greatest improvements in FreeBSD development in the early 2000s was the shifting of high-risk work-in-progress development from the CVS head to Perforce. This allowed the head to remain remarkably stable during the multi-year SMPng, KSE, TrustedBSD, GEOM, etc, projects that would otherwise have been remarkably disruptive. This trend has continued with increased use of Subversion branches, Git/Mercurial repositories, etc. Many companies develop their products alongside -CURRENT branches because they need a long in-field product lifespan only accomplished by shipping based on .0 or .1 releases, or because they are jointly developing a feature with other members of the FreeBSD community. We definitely do not want to discourage carefully reasoned use of -CURRENT in products, while recognising the risks associated with an in-progress software revision. Certainly, we want to avoid bumping developers off -CURRENT, and the goal should be to keep -CURRENT maximially usable at all times -- in early FreeBSD development cycles, we saw the severe problems associated with not doing so (e.g., 3.x-era VM work that pushed many developers off -CURRENT for even personal work). Robert