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Date:      Thu, 29 Nov 2018 17:53:55 +0100
From:      "D. Ebdrup" <debdrup@gmail.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Timed releases for the new FreeBSD support model
Message-ID:  <CANtgGBqPj0owzZxzMvfAY_KgFuyNki9L20OtPUdFcdCusDWaQQ@mail.gmail.com>

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In lieu of any suggestions for where discussion can take place in the
announcement email, I figured it'd be best to start this here. So with
that said, and since FreeBSDs support model is changing, I've been
wondering whether its possible for FreeBSD to have timed releases - so
here's something to get a conversation started on that:

Can FreeBSD do timed releases?
They have advantages and disadvantages, of course - but I'm wondering
if the advantages outweighs the disadvantages.

Does anything stop timed releases from being possible with the way
FreeBSD currently does releases?
E.g. picking features from a stable branch, instead of shoveling
everything in the repository into a release to get it out on time
(which I don't think anyone wants?).

Assuming there are other issues, can these be fixed?


In a similar vein, I think there's some questions FreeBSD needs to
answer before making the decision on whether it should have timed
releases, if it's possible. Here's some:

Is a timed release delayed if someone emails so@ with patch for an
exploit that's in a release while it's being built?
Personally, I think I'd prefer a release be delayed slightly as
day0/day1 binary updates seems irresponsible to me (read: distributing
releases with known security exploits, that is).

What happens in case a PoC appears after being withheld until a
release has been built?
Presumably the only way to fix that is with a binary update.


And finally: Can pkg'd base change any of the answers - to me, it
seems like an obvious candidate for making timed releases easier, but
I might be missing something obvious.



Daniel Ebdrup aka. D. Ebdrup.



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