On Aug 8, 2008, at 9:33 AM, Lars Heill wrote: > We intend to remove 5.0. However, with the jungle of dependants > out there, not at the same time we add 5.1, but after say two > months.
But keep in mind that if you're keeping both 5.0 and 5.1 (and 4.x!) in OpenSolaris 2008.11, their life will be the support life of the 2008.11 release. So you're signing up for more than 2 months of continued 5.0 support. Which is perhaps ok, but something to keep in mind... > And not to forget: end users may well want OS 2008.11 but > not 5.1 quite yet, so 5.0 need to run nicely in parallel. That's a slippery slope though. Maybe they want 2008.11 but don't want Apache 2.2.9 (which will be upgraded). That's why we declare the stability of interfaces so there is a clear cut expectation and documentation on what behavior can change when. If the upgrade from version X to version Y is 100% compatible on all public interfaces, there is no rational reason to not upgrade. (I do realize there is a fear of upgrades even on the face of absolute forward compatibility, an education battle Solaris has been fighting for ages.) Anyway, the spec needs to document any incompatibilities, if any (perhaps it already does, sorry I don't have it handy to check, I'm on vacation ;-)
