Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:13:13 -0500 From: "Maxim Khitrov" <mkhitrov@gmail.com> To: "Glen Barber" <glen.j.barber@gmail.com> Cc: Robert Huff <roberthuff@rcn.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Release schedules Message-ID: <26ddd1750812121113o1590d54r9962ec3d22a20bdb@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4ad871310812121028m4e368da4n69e06d592e312eb0@mail.gmail.com> References: <200811121259.25046.jonathan%2Bfreebsd-questions@hst.org.za> <20081112120147.GA62386@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <f2c294a10812120920l4d11bebfgd5c9208336b075b@mail.gmail.com> <18754.42851.295211.155980@jerusalem.litteratus.org> <4ad871310812121028m4e368da4n69e06d592e312eb0@mail.gmail.com>
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On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Glen Barber <glen.j.barber@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Robert Huff <roberthuff@rcn.com> wrote: >> >> "When it's ready" used to be the scheduling principle. >> Then came 5.0 debacle: behind schedule big-time (and arguably >> not ready when it went out the door). >> I remember discussion afterwards, where there seemed to be >> agreement there ought to be a more-or-less regular schedule of major >> releases every two years (plus or minus) with minor releases every >> few months. >> Looking at "www.freebsd.org/releases/index.html", that's >> getting stretched. The RC-1 announcement for 7.1, originally >> scheduled for early September, is now listed as last week ... and >> didn't actually happen. (Unless I missed the memo.) >> > > The RC-1 announcement for 7.1 did come out last week (check the > stable@ archives). > > I personally would rather wait for quality than pushed quantity. This discussion has come up countless number of times and the answer is always the same - all of us would rather wait for quality, but we'd also like some very rough timeline estimates that don't fall back into the past. Notice that I said nothing about them having to be 100% accurate. The questions are about the published timelines, the answers are about the process. Hence, nothing ever gets resolved. It makes no sense at all to have a published timeline, but claim that it is irrelevant because "it's done when it's done." Do you not agree? For example, RC2 builds were scheduled for 29 September 2008. When that day comes (or same week perhaps), whoever has the ability to change the release schedule page should update it regardless of what happened. If RC2 builds started, that should be reflected in the 'actual' column. Otherwise, if it's a minor change in the timeline, put the new expected date in. As is the case of 7.1 release, if the person honestly has no idea when RC2 will happen, put in 'December', 'January', 'Second half of January'... 'Sometime next year' if it's that uncertain. Anything at all; it takes 5 minutes to do. In the worst case, your estimate will need to be updated again in a month or two. In the best case, the release will be made before the expected date. I, for one, promise not to complain about that. :) Any date in the future will provide some information regarding the release process, no matter how vague. Having a timeline that is in the past provides no information whatsoever, and only irritates people who are trying to do some planning of their own around the FreeBSD release process. People aren't complaining because of missed dates, they are complaining because of a lack of information; information that should take no time or difficulty at all to provide. At least that is my personal opinion. - Max
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