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Date:      Thu, 22 Dec 1994 20:47:00 -0800
From:      "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
To:        hackers@freebsd.org
Cc:        announce@freebsd.org
Subject:   Time for a weird experiment..
Message-ID:  <15884.788158020@time.cdrom.com>

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As part of an ongoing effort to improve the overall release process
BEFORE a release actually slips out the door with problems that make
folks mad, I'm going to start rolling fairly regular binary snapshots.

These snapshots will be very similar to full releases, except that
they'll be somewhat more minimal.  I won't, for example, roll new
XFree86 distributions or worry overmuch about the tools directory,
unless either of those two things are affected by the changes I'm
trying to test.  Where it makes sense, I'll simply link distributions
or files that are unchanged across snapshots to the previous snapshot
or major release.

I also won't be changing the major release number for each snapshot,
and will *only* be tweaking the announced version in the boot floppies
so that you know when the snapshot was made (the release string will
be of the form: FreeBSD-2.0-YYMMDD-SNAP).  These are NOT releases,
these are *snapshots*, and it's important that this distinction be
preserved.  People can and will, of course, refer to snapshots by date
in mail or netnews, I just don't want them to start thinking that
Christmas came early and 2.1 is already out! :-)

Finally, I probably won't go out of my way too much to update the
documentation.  If a README still says `RELEASE 2.0' in it, well,
that's much less important to me than getting corrected bits out.
Complaints about that kind of thing will be quietly ignored.  Again,
these are *snapshots*, not releases!

Your feedback on these snapshots is, of course, greatly welcome.
They're not just for our benefit - those who are coming to rely on
FreeBSD 2.0 for mission critical applications should welcome a chance
to get at more updated bits in a structured fashion.  You can also use
these snapshots as tangible evidence that your feedback is getting
incorporated and that you (hopefully) won't have any unpleasant
surprises for 2.1.  On the other hand, if you do send us hate mail for
2.1 and it turns out that you never even tried the snapshots, well, it
cuts both ways! :-)

Anyway, enough blabber.  The first snapshot may be found in:

	ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.0-941222-SNAP/...

And before you ask, yes, the srcdist is still one big chunk.  Fixing
this will be one of the priorities for the next snapshot.  This one
focuses mostly on enhanced installation and bug fixes.

Above all - have fun with this!

					Jordan




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