From owner-freebsd-stable Sun Apr 20 22:49:12 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA17406 for stable-outgoing; Sun, 20 Apr 1997 22:49:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA17398 for ; Sun, 20 Apr 1997 22:49:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id WAA18466; Sun, 20 Apr 1997 22:48:50 -0700 (PDT) To: Richard Wackerbarth cc: "Jay D. Nelson" , Masaya Kinoshita , stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Is there a perceived need for a 2.1.8 release? In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 20 Apr 1997 22:21:19 CDT." Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 22:48:49 -0700 Message-ID: <18464.861601729@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-stable@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Again, let me suggest that a periodic release set which has the archive of > all the presently supported versions would be easier to sell to management. One problem with this - if I'm genuinely making it a "best of all branches" CD then I get into the issue of supporting the relevant port and package set for each or I've greatly diminished the value of the offering for what people are obviously going to use it for - the most "definitive" release CD they own. By contrast, if I have a semi-stable snapshot which is also going to be rendered obsolete in 3-4 months by the next snapshot then I don't expect the CD to have much of a shelf-life and I don't have to sweat even a full packages collection (though now that I've gone to two CDs, I can). It's just a developer's snapshot with limited utility and nobody's going to expect all the bells and whistles. Now, however, let's say I've done a nifty 2.1.8 / 2.2.5 combo CDROM. Most people know that major point releases only happen once every 6 months or so, and that 2.1.8 release might even be the *last* -stable release for all we know (nobody's going to promise that, obviously, but it's always an increasing possibility for a branch that old), so now we're talking about a CD that's going to sit on a lot of shelves for awhile. It's the installer's definitive 2.1-stable CD and it's probably also the primary 2.2 installation CD for at least 4-5 more months. I'm going to get away with not making a packages collection for each? Not hardly! I would be lynched! :-) So that means a 4 CD set and every time I bring this up with Walnut Creek CDROM they cringe, so I haven't the heart. I still think it's inevitable, however, and when the day comes that I talk them into it then I'llcertainly very seriously consider a mondo CD with last-release bits for all major branches, a CVS tree, packages for each branch and possibly even the last two major XFree86 distributions. I could do a lot with 4 CDs. :-) Jordan