Re: How much to remove from UPDATING (was: Re: git: ff0c7816db69 - main - Remove UPDATING entries from old branches.)

On Sun, Nov 27, 2022 at 11:34 PM Alexander Leidinger <netchild@freebsd.org>
wrote:

> Quoting Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> (from Sun, 27 Nov 2022 20:12:08
> -0700):
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 27, 2022 at 7:17 PM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 27, 2022 at 2:35 PM Alexander Leidinger <netchild@freebsd.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Quoting Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> (from Fri, 25 Nov 2022 09:41:28
>>> -0700):
>>>
>>> > Please revert this. We keep older updating entries on purpose. You
>>> purged
>>> > way too much. Let's chat about how much to remove in arch@. They are
>>> for
>>> > more than just source updates, so your reasoning is wrong. They are
>>> also
>>> > there for users updating their products which can have a larger leap in
>>> > time. We've traditionally kept closer to 5-10 years here for that
>>> reason.
>>>
>>> Reverted.
>>>
>>> UPDATING as far back as stable/10 (= 4 major updates) is a little bit
>>> excessive (more than 9 years of development work so far), isn't it?
>>>
>>
>> Yes. It's about one release too old, maybe two. More on one or two in a
>> bit.
>>
>>
>>> I don't get the "more than just src updates" part. If we don't talk
>>> about the source code, isn't src/UPATING not the wrong place to store
>>> it?
>>>
>>
>> More than just 'make buildworld updating' or ''updating a system from src'
>> is what I mean.
>>
>>
>>> In terms of updating products, I understand that updating them every 2
>>> years may be a little bit expensive/excessive for some vendors, but
>>> taking every UPDATING from every stable branch in-between doesn't look
>>> too much time consuming to me. And compared to the huge amount of
>>> changes between N-2 and N... taking UPDATING from all stable branches
>>> in-beteen is nothing. Nevertheless, 4-5 years I consider OK-ish,
>>> nearly 10 years is ... ugh ... a life-time or two in the computer
>>> world. If we look e.g. at the PlayStation (yes, just one of the
>>> products which has FreeBSD inside, but personally I consider it one of
>>> the more stable ones than some network products which have a shorter
>>> shelf-time than the PS-line from an OS-version-tracking point of
>>> view), there are around 6 years in-between models, and they surely
>>> haven't started developing a month before the release date.
>>>
>>
>> So, let's look at what it's used for to see how much we need. If you
>> look at it that way, you'll see that we're not crazy lagging.
>>
>>
>>> So where do we draw the line for UPDATING, 2 major versions (~4
>>> years), 3 major versions (~6 years)? ~10 years (~5 major versions)
>>> looks overly excessive to me. That's not something you want to try to
>>> catch up, that's rather a new development than a catch-up
>>>
>>
>> OK. Traditionally we've lagged a major release or two from what's
>> officially supported by the project. Right now the 10.x stuff is
>> definitely
>> too old. The 11.x stuff is borderline (but likely relevant), the 12.x
>> stuff
>> is still quite relevant.
>>
>> We need to look at who is updating. Many people have only recently
>> updated from 11. Almost everybody has updated from 10 by now. Lots
>> of people are using 12 and it's still supported.
>>
>> Most of the folks that have source products with lots of changes have
>> updated to at least 12 as far as I've been able to tell. But many haven't
>> jumped to 13 or current yet.
>>
>> There are many people still updating their VMs from 11. Traditionally,
>> they
>> wait until after 11.x goes unsupported before they update. It's only been
>> unsupported for just over 1 year. In the past, this is where upgrading is
>> hitting full speed (I've received feedback in the past at conferences that
>> people often put it off for up to 18 months)... 10.x has been unsupported
>> for more than 3 years, so historically everybody has moved on. So the
>>
>
> I can't do math.... More than 4 years...
>
>
>> 10.x entries are definitely stale... The 11 entries are on the edge...
>> I'd
>> normally have removed the 10.x entries when 13 was branched, but
>> I was asleep at the wheel this time.... Though looking at the logs, I've
>> been not so great about this. Better at some times, worse at others....
>>
>
>
>> So in my opinion, 10.x entries should have already been gone. 11.x
>> entries are likely useful enough to keep, but they are waning fast. 12.x
>> entries are likely being used all the time by people upgrading from
>> still-supported
>> releases. We've traditionally weighted towards retention because the
>> cost of retention has been super low.
>>
>> This suggests we delete up to the 11 branch point now, and to the 12
>> branch point when 14 branches in 6 months or so...
>>
>
> 13.x was branched about 6.5 years ago. When 14 is branched, it will be
> 7 years and we'll removing the to the 12 branch point which will be
> four and half years. This seems like a good range to oscillate between.
>
>
> If I understand it correctly, you want to target a policy of:
> Just before the branch of stable/N we remove old entries from UPDATING and
> keep the data of N-2 branches = deleting the data of N-3.
>
> stable/14 -> keep 13+12 and delete 11.
>
> Basically we both are aligned and think N-2 is on the edge. I don't mind
> to live with this edge...
>
> Do we want to document that somewhere? RE-tasklist? Inside UPDATING (top
> or bottom)?
>
> What about removing the entries of 10? Now or with next branch? I would
> vote to do it now, what's done is done.
>

I think we should remove entries before the 11 branch now. I'll create a
review with that.

Warner