Re: understanding freebsd development logic
On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:39:39 +0200 Giorgos Keramidas wrote: > The thesis of Niklas Saers is a bit dated now, but it is a wonderful > document and it answers this question (including a few others too). > > I think it will be an interesting read for you: > most certainly!! i've been going through it quickly and it is really fascinating to see the historical structure and the development models. specifically, this would seem to answer much: "The project provides multiple versions of FreeBSD intended for audiences with different priorities between the newest features and rock solid stability and security. This means that the newest minor release or updates along a security branch are already old in terms of being well tested when they are released." and coordinates well with things some of the other posters to this thread have written. i rather like this approach because it doesn't let the old stuff just die (in fact, we just installed 4.4 on some of our machines) and the idea of backporting is really quite a remarkable concept. i will look at niklas' thesis in greater detail over the next few days, so thank you very much for drawing my attention to it. -- In friendship, prad ... with you on your journey Towards Freedom http://www.towardsfreedom.com (website) Information, Inspiration, Imagination - truly a site for soaring I's ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: understanding freebsd development logic
prad wrote: i am puzzled by what seems to be almost a parallel processor development model that exists with freebsd. when 7 came out people were still working on 6.3 i think it was with the aim of going to 6.4 and now with 7.x underway, there is work being do for 8 (for which you can get a snapshot cd. (i seem to recall something similar with debian too). why would people work on 7.x (and 6.x as well i guess) if 8 is already available? Going between branches eg 7.x and 8.x, you may see major kernel changes. Drivers which work in 7 may not work in 8 and vice versa. If you've got something running stable in 7, you're not going upgrade to 8 just for the sake of running 8. Changes in versions can introduce problems, some unforeseen. If you have a known set of functionality that requires tested stability, you should use the most recent RELEASE that covers that functionality. 8.x is not available as a release. Security concerns adds a whole new set of variables to your questions. is the idea to make each version 'as good as possible' because it would still be useful for older machines? or is it that later versions can utilize code from the earlier versions? or is it something else. I think generally things are developed for CURRENT then back ported as demand and dev time allows. There are always exceptions. -- Adam Vandemore Systems Administrator IMED Mobility (605) 498-1610 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: understanding freebsd development logic
On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 02:25:59PM -0800, prad wrote: > i am puzzled by what seems to be almost a parallel processor development > model that exists with freebsd. when 7 came out people were still > working on 6.3 i think it was with the aim of going to 6.4 and now with > 7.x underway, there is work being do for 8 (for which you can get a > snapshot cd. (i seem to recall something similar with debian too). > > why would people work on 7.x (and 6.x as well i guess) if 8 is already > available? The CURRENT branch (which will become 8.x) is for the hackers to play in and to give them the opportunity to introduce big, rapid changes without messing up machines that need to be usable. Some changes might not even compile at first or lead to crashes. So the 7.x releases and the 7-STABLE branch is focused more on reliability and bugfixes. One older branch 6.x is maintained as a legacy branch for people who cannot switch to 7.x. For a more in-depth explanation, see http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) pgp8HKeNg6jaJ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: understanding freebsd development logic
On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:25:59 -0800, prad wrote: > is the idea to make each version 'as good as possible' because it > would still be useful for older machines? or is it that later > versions can utilize code from the earlier versions? or is it > something else? I hope it doesn't sound impolite, but FreeBSD's development process isn't tied to hardware evolution (such as it is with nearly any Linux and of course with "Windows"). You can use 7.1 on the same hardware that ran 4.6 before, and you get a gain of speed! When development in 8-CURRENT is considered to be important to the 7.x-branch, it will surely be backportet. Another reason is that there are FreeBSD installations where the maintainer isn't interested in updating to the "bleeding edge" point of development, or simply can't afford this because of security considerations. So it's important to clean bugs from systems that are still in use, these are 6.x and 7.x at the moment, while releases prior to these numbers have already been EOLed, as far as I know. Of course, nothing stops you from *not* updating an existing 5.x installation, especially when it runs sufficiently to your needs. With the ++ of the major release number, often new concepts are introduced which are held back during the ++ of the minor version number of the respective predecessor release, such as, for example, the use of devfs for /dev, or the inclusion of ZFS in the base system. I'm not a developer so I'm not competent enough to go into detail regarding your question. -- Polytropon >From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: understanding freebsd development logic
On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:25:59 -0800, prad wrote: > i am puzzled by what seems to be almost a parallel processor > development model that exists with freebsd. when 7 came out people > were still working on 6.3 i think it was with the aim of going to 6.4 > and now with 7.x underway, there is work being do for 8 (for which you > can get a snapshot cd. (i seem to recall something similar with debian > too). > > why would people work on 7.x (and 6.x as well i guess) if 8 is already > available? The thesis of Niklas Saers is a bit dated now, but it is a wonderful document and it answers this question (including a few others too). I think it will be an interesting read for you: http://niklas.saers.com/thesis/thesis.html ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
understanding freebsd development logic
i am puzzled by what seems to be almost a parallel processor development model that exists with freebsd. when 7 came out people were still working on 6.3 i think it was with the aim of going to 6.4 and now with 7.x underway, there is work being do for 8 (for which you can get a snapshot cd. (i seem to recall something similar with debian too). why would people work on 7.x (and 6.x as well i guess) if 8 is already available? is the idea to make each version 'as good as possible' because it would still be useful for older machines? or is it that later versions can utilize code from the earlier versions? or is it something else? -- In friendship, prad ... with you on your journey Towards Freedom http://www.towardsfreedom.com (website) Information, Inspiration, Imagination - truly a site for soaring I's ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
