Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 10:07:43 +1000 (EST) From: John Birrell <jb@cimlogic.com.au> To: Studded@dal.net (Studded) Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Upgrade documentation (Was: Re: Make world error on -current elf) Message-ID: <199809270007.KAA21919@cimlogic.com.au> In-Reply-To: <360D773E.E0178B7F@dal.net> from Studded at "Sep 26, 98 04:22:38 pm"
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Studded wrote: > I administer several systems that are 600 miles away, one that's 2,000. > Source upgrades are the only path for me, and I know there's a lot of > others in the same boat. That's amazing. Perhaps my experience is a bit limited. How many operating systems support source level upgrades, let alone a change in execuatable format in the process? We're working in an environment where the number of revision levels of installed systems is unknown. Anticipating what can go wrong is mind boggling. It's a support nightmare. If I were you, I think I'd be looking for a client/server sysinstall that could handle binary upgrades. > > I guess this needs a link to the CVSup instructions. It's not specifically > > the 3.0 sources, but the HEAD cvs tag. > > Thanks for the clarification. At some point though, if I want > 3.0-Release it will be a different tag, yes? I'm guessing something like > RELENG_3_0. That will be more difficult to ensure unless the user goes through the `make release' process and specifies the cvs tag to that. > The problem is, within the next X months, 3.0 isn't going to be > -Current anymore, it's going to be the mainstream. IMO we need to start > planning for this change, oh, 6 months ago or so. :) > > If I can digress for a moment, this is actually a much bigger paradigm > shift than most people are realizing it seems. For years now, the 3.0 > branch (and I mean that specifically, as opposed to the more nebulous > idea of "-Current") has been the exclusive domain of the "elite" group > of hackers who could stomach its idiosyncracies. In a sense, it's become > a sort of "home" to those who have used it and nursed it along lovingly. > Anyone who couldn't handle the stress/demands of running -Current could > easily be booted out the door without sympathy. With the advent of > 3.0-Release, there will be a thundering herd of folks coming into the > 3.0 branch, mucking around with stuff, trampling the tulips, etc. AFAIK, the idea of releasing 3.0 before 2.2.8 was to give 3.0 a chance to stablize for the herd of folks who trample on our tulips. Doh! The difference between life in 3.0-CURRENT and life in 3.0-RELEASE is the amount of experimental work going on. Current can only go back to that experimentation after the tree is branched. One reason for not branching now is to keep people concentrating on what will be released instead of deserting the release branch in favour of a place where anything (almost) goes. > I've already seen some of the resentment, bad feelings, etc. associated > with this kind of shift appearing on the lists, and I expect more to > come. BTW, this is one of the reasons I suggested branching off -Current > when the beta period started, to help ease the time of transition by > giving the present denizens of 3.0 a new home. I don't want to see the tree branched until 3.0-RELEASE. I doubt that there are many people who run more than one branch. We can't afford to have developers stop using the branch that will be released. 2.2.X already suffers from not enough people concentrating on the finer detail. > I'm sure a lot of people reading this will probably think I'm full of > it, but I offer it as something for you to consider. Especially if > you've been feeling some unfocused anger or aggression related to the > changes, this might help you put a finger on it. :) One of the problems I see is that some people who are trying to use current shouldn't be doing so. Living with current through major changes like E/P/C-days is probably about as bad as it can get. I think that some people over-estimate their ability to handle sources which can become unstable during times of change. I'll give you an example. After exchanging about a dozen emails with a user trying to upgrade his system to elf, I asked when he lasted updated his sources. I couldn't understand why his build wasn't behaving like mine. He asked me where he could get the latest sources. Sigh. -- John Birrell - jb@cimlogic.com.au; jb@freebsd.org http://www.cimlogic.com.au/ CIMlogic Pty Ltd, GPO Box 117A, Melbourne Vic 3001, Australia +61 418 353 137 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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