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Date:      Thu, 18 Sep 2008 06:18:40 -0700
From:      Jeremy Chadwick <koitsu@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Wilko Bulte <wb@freebie.xs4all.nl>
Cc:        freebsd-stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>, Wesley Shields <wxs@freebsd.org>, Ben Kaduk <minimarmot@gmail.com>, Jo Rhett <jrhett@netconsonance.com>, Robert Watson <rwatson@freebsd.org>, Nathan Way <nathan@datanode.com>
Subject:   Re: Upcoming Releases Schedule...
Message-ID:  <20080918131840.GA18595@icarus.home.lan>
In-Reply-To: <20080918124608.GK91598@freebie.xs4all.nl>
References:  <20080904133604.GB1188@atarininja.org> <CB36FE28-D125-4C22-B5DE-1001515DD8A6@netconsonance.com> <47d0403c0809051319r3c82f87bhdb15ce5b0167987a@mail.gmail.com> <alpine.BSF.1.10.0809061159410.28840@fledge.watson.org> <2742CAB1-8FF2-425D-A3B6-0658D7DB8F4D@netconsonance.com> <alpine.BSF.1.10.0809162043380.64176@fledge.watson.org> <0C2C7E9B-61E3-4720-B76F-4745A3C963DA@netconsonance.com> <alpine.BSF.1.10.0809180022580.13100@fledge.watson.org> <658B8861-1E78-4767-8D3D-8B79CC0BD45F@netconsonance.com> <20080918124608.GK91598@freebie.xs4all.nl>

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On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 02:46:09PM +0200, Wilko Bulte wrote:
> Quoting Jo Rhett, who wrote on Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 09:25:27PM -0700 ..
> > On Sep 17, 2008, at 4:33 PM, Robert Watson wrote:
> > > An important factor is whether or not we consider the release a  
> > > highly maintainable release, and while we have intuitions at the  
> > > time of release, that's something we can only learn in the first  
> > > couple of months after it's in production.  I don't know of any COTS  
> > > software house that really does it any differently
> > 
> > I understand what you mean, but the statement is blatantly false as  
> > stated.  Anyone selling software to the US Government *must* specify  
> > (or meet, depending) a minimum support period, and must also specify a  
> > cost the agency can pay to extend the support period.
> > 
> > Not relevant to FreeBSD -- just qualifying the statement as it  
> > stands.  For the obvious comparison, Solaris versions have well- 
> > published release and support periods, usually upwards of 8 years.   
> > Obviously they have more resources to do this, I'm just pointing out  
> > that the statement you made is incorrect as stated.
> > 
> > > and I'm not sure you could do it differently -- no one plans to ship  
> > > a lemon, but once in a while you discover that things don't go as  
> > > planned.
> > 
> > 
> > I am amazed at the preposterously large elephant in the room that none  
> > of you are willing to address.  Watching each of you dance around it  
> > would be terribly funny if it didn't affect my job so badly.  (and if  
> > I wasn't going to have to bail on FreeBSD and go to some crap form of  
> > Linux because the FreeBSD developers appear to be unwilling to  
> > consider the idea of getting more help)
> 
> You seem to be *demanding* quite a lot lately.

Jo has a point, though.  I'm certain he's looked at the situation from
the developers' point of view, and in response, I'd recommend others
try to look at it from his, even if others consider it silly or
unreasonable.

It's a frustrating situation, and there's no snap-your-fingers-voila
solution for it, other than extending support lifetimes per release.
Mark's graphs show release lifetimes are getting shorter, which I doubt
Jo would have a problem with, assuming each new release was somehow
guaranteed (more or less, cut me some slack) to not break previous
releases' binaries and so on.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |




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