Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 22:03:34 +0100 (CET) From: Adam Szilveszter <sziszi@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu> To: "Forrest W. Christian" <forrestc@iMach.com> Cc: stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Bug-fixing previous -RELEASE, was Re: speaking of 3.4... Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.991126212535.15539A-100000@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.991126130751.29031A-100000@workhorse.iMach.com>
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Hi! On Fri, 26 Nov 1999, Forrest W. Christian wrote: > > I think I just "got it". Is the following description correct: > > I believe what I am hearing is that in reality what occurs is this: > > -STABLE-19991212 - Final bug fixes incorporated > -STABLE-19991215 - release, NEW BRANCH CREATED. > > And then we have both: > > -STABLE-19991216 - next stable "snapshot" > ...and so on > > -RELEASE-19991220 - release bugfixes > ...and so on. > > Is this correct? If not, where did I err? Hmmmm... almost correct. What happens is this: 3.3-19991212-STABLE (Last fixes, say) 3.4-RELEASE (It is marked as such and not placed in the "snapshots" dir on the ftp servers, instead you can find it in the releases dir.) 3.4-19991220-STABLE (Life back to normal) However, there are no more 3.3-STABLE snapshots... it is because we have only two branches (or three, if you want it) at any on time: They are at present: - 2.2.x for the previous-stable. Still occasional commits occur and maybe even snapshots are produced. (I have just found one for 2.2.8 from Nov. 10) - 3.x for now-stable. It does not matter if it is 3.1 or 3.2 or whatever, it is a continous stream of bug fixes and improvements and only reflects the releases in its numbering scheme. - 4.x for current. After 4.0 becomes release, it will become stable, 3.x will be the previous-stable and 5.x will be current. Of course the whole thing only applies if you do binary upgrades. If you cvsup you will never see the RELEASE tag, it will only change from 3.3-STABLE to 3.4-STABLE. (or at least I have not seen it, only after a total reinstall) Sorry if this has been obvious... As others have pointed out, there is no strict fixes-only branch, but sometimes it is truly hard to tell the difference between a fix and a new feature. There are cases where the two are logically dependent. But I do not know of any other OS, that would have the thing you are asking for. Even WinNT, where they are cautious not to give you the new features for free in SP-s because they could also charge separately for the upgrade, often brings new features between the versions. Only with Win98 did they make this, they gave the bugfixes for free via Windows Update but if you also wanted the new features, you had to pay. But this has been the only case, really, that I have heard of. (Earlier there were no bug fixes at all for Win:-) You had to wait for the next release instead.) I think one could consider the whole of the 3.x branch as one edition of the OS and the minor numbers can then become service releases or whatever. (If it makes anybody more comfortable:-) It really is a continous stream of development which is broken up into releases for the sake of those who cannot cvsup or do a binary upgrade over the Net, and also for selling the CDs and raising money and in order to demonstrate to third parties where we have arrived this far and also to give beginners a chance to get on the train (theoretically they could do this via a binary snapshot as well, but snapshots are not printed on CDs and are not carried by all mirrors due to space concerns, whereas releases are. (That is why you can see -STABLE to be just a symlink to the -RELEASE dir in some ftp sites.) So yes, as some have said the releases within one branch could also be named snaps. But this is already taken, it is for binary shots between particular releases.:-) This is sometimes not trivial to follow, BTW. On OpenBSD, for example, there is only one branch, it is constantly evolving and is now between releases 2.5 and 2.6 en route. If you are interested in new features and fixes, you check out a snapshot. (Mostly binary, CVSup only appeared recently) If you are not so daring, you use the previous release and if they find some nasty security bugs (that's what they are after in the first place:-) they post a patch for *THAT* maybe it is the closest to what you were having in mind... Sorry for the long post, if it has been all known to all of you... Cheers: Szilveszter ADAM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Adam Szilveszter * JATE Szeged * email: sziszi@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu * * Homepage : none * alternate email: cc@flanker.itl.net.ua * * Finger sziszi@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu for PGP key. * * I prefer using the door instead of Windows(tm)... * To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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