Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:42:39 +0100 From: Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org> To: Tom Evans <tevans.uk@googlemail.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD has serious problems with focus, longevity, and lifecycle Message-ID: <CAF-QHFV8oj=ipwcsVo3e3P3kgGBPr%2Bz1gRzn3D3PT%2Bc0pHJtcQ@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <CAFHbX1%2Bi3JwCCBmqtOsW6m74VpDBSAmBOt7CPcCGAPCO2DBDkA@mail.gmail.com> References: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1112211415580.19710@kozubik.com> <jf3mps$is3$1@dough.gmane.org> <CAFHbX1%2Bi3JwCCBmqtOsW6m74VpDBSAmBOt7CPcCGAPCO2DBDkA@mail.gmail.com>
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On 17 January 2012 13:02, Tom Evans <tevans.uk@googlemail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org> wrote: >> I've concluded very early that because of what I've said above, the only= way >> to run FreeBSD effectively is to track -STABLE. The developers MFC-ing s= tuff >> usually try hard not to break things so -STABLE has become a sort of >> "running RELEASE" branch. Since -STABLE is so ... stable ..., there is l= ess >> and less incentive to make proper releases (though I think nobody would = mind >> it happening). >> >> The next question is: what do releases from a -STABLE branch bring in th= at >> simply tracking the original -STABLE tree doesn't? Lately, not very much= . > > Sorry to just pick out bits of your email Ivan=E2=80=A6 > > Ability to use freebsd-update. It would be better to have more > frequent releases. As a prime example, ZFS became much more stable > about 3 months after 8.2 was released. If you were waiting for an 8.x > release that supported that improved version of ZFS, you are still > waiting. You know, that's an excellent point! And maybe an excellent idea: to provide occasional, time-based STABLE snapshots for freebsd-update. > You say that snapshots of STABLE are stable and effectively a running > release branch, so why can't more releases be made? Nobody volunteered :( > Is the release process too complex for minor revisions, could that be > improved to make it easier to have more releases, eg by not bundling > ports packages? Almost certainly yes. The current release process involves src, ports and docs teams. Would you and other RELEASE users be happy with simple periodic snapshots off the STABLE branches, not much different from tracking STABLE? The only benefit I see would be a light-weight opportunity for testing which would probably end up being implemented by moving to date-based tags (e.g. if a critical bug is found and the fix MFC-ed, the "current" tag would be advanced to "$today")? > Can it really be that the best advice for users is to run their own > build infrastructure and make their own releases? Maybe. I'm trying to suggest that it looks like (I may be wrong, of course) that the effort required to upgrade from one RELEASE to the other is comparable to the effort of just having a -STABLE build machine somewhere and doing "make installkernel, make installworld, mergemaster -FU" over NFS on a 1000 machines. If you are serious about testing, you would need to test the RELEASEs also. > I really don't want to come across as someone throwing their toys out > and saying that unless everything changes I'm off to Linux-land, > however there is mutterings at $JOB that too much time is spent > massaging FreeBSD and that using Linux would be significantly easier > to manage. Personally, I actually like apt-get and the way it handles installs, updates, dependencies, suggesteions, etc. I dislike almost everything else, thoughj. But now I'm curious: how do you (and others) update from one RELEASE to the other? Just by using freebsd-update? What do you think prevents you from using -STABLE?
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