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Date:      Mon, 17 Aug 2015 01:11:14 +0300
From:      Alnis Morics <alnis.m@mail.com>
To:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: help me understand latest->quarterly pkg.conf switch
Message-ID:  <55D10A82.8060607@mail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20150725020440.GJ84931@FreeBSD.org>
References:  <a690b368e20f20ae3901236eef0ff254@mail.lifanov.com> <20150724212757.GE84931@FreeBSD.org> <c917b02df691cbae6017f664443247e5@mail.lifanov.com> <20150725020440.GJ84931@FreeBSD.org>

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On 07/25/2015 05:04 AM, Glen Barber wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 09:23:12PM -0400, Nikolai Lifanov wrote:
>> On 2015-07-24 17:27, Glen Barber wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 05:15:52PM -0400, Nikolai Lifanov wrote:
>>>> I noticed that in stable/10, /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf was switched from
>>>> using
>>>> latest package set to whichever one that is "quarterly" word is pointing
>>>> to
>>>> at the moment. What is the motivation for this change?
>>>>
>>> This was not done in the stable/10 branch, it was done in releng/10.2.
>>>
>>>> Quarterly package sets are useful if the end-user is able to pick which
>>>> one
>>>> to pull from and there is some amount of time of support overlap so that
>>>> the
>>>> user has time to validate the new package set and switch his systems to
>>>> it
>>>> (like what is done with pkgsrc). As-is, "quarterly" works just like
>>>> "latest"
>>> >from end-user perspective, but for most of the lifecycle packages are
>>>> outdated and there is a massive update bomb four times per year.
>>>>
>>>> Port branches are still valuable to those building their own packages,
>>>> since
>>>> they can support the previous (unsupported by the project) branch,
>>>> backporting fixes manually, while validating and upgrading to the new
>>>> one.
>>>> But, what is the value of the quarterly package set as-is and what is
>>>> the
>>>> value of switching to this set by default?
>>>>
>>> In general, the quarterly package set is less prone to having build
>>> failures, since the changes in the branch are (by intent) less
>>> intrusive, while still receiving security updates.  It is analogous to
>>> the stable or releng branches in src, and how they compare to head.
>>>
>>> (This will be noted in the final 10.2-RELEASE announcement, as well as
>>> the release notes, and will also include instructions on how to switch
>>> to the 'latest' branch if that is what is desired.)
>>>
>>> Glen
>> Cool, thanks for the explanation!
>>
> You're welcome.  (The 'quarterly' branch is admittedly under-documented,
> which is a problem.)
>
>> What would be really amazing to see are quarterly branches that the end user
>> can switch between, like pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/2015Q3 ->
>> pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/2015Q4 when he is ready, with at least a little bit
>> of overlap.
>>
> I agree this would be a "nice to see" feature, but as I have insight
> into how the pkg(8) mirrors operate, this is an unfortunately
> non-trivial thing to implement.
>
> Glen
>
Does this mean that quarterly pkg are synchronous with ports quarterly 
branches? Say, at the moment, packages that we install with the default 
("quarterly") setting in /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf, are built from the 
2015Q3 branch?

-Alnis



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