Re: Change to FreeBSD release scheduling etc.

On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 11:58:16 -0700
Colin Percival <cperciva@freebsd.org> wrote:

> On 7/14/24 05:18, Peter wrote:
> > In short, it takes me about 3 months to catch the surprizes[*] and fix
> > (or find out how to cope with) the concerning issues, regressions et
> > al. that come along with a new release. Up to now that would then give
> > another 9 months during which the systems can be operated in a
> > plan-of-record fashion, until the next release starts the hassle
> > again.
> 
> While I see your point, we're hoping that having roughly 2x as many minor
> releases will result in at least a 2x reduction in the number of surprises
> per minor release -- because not only is less code changing between minor
> releases, but also committers feeling less pressure to hit a deadline may
> result in code being better tested and less surprise-prone when it lands
> in a minor release.
> 
> > Thinking about what could be done for remedy, what comes to my mind
> > most easily is, simply support two most recent releases, so people
> > get the option to skip each other upgrade. That doesn't look like much
> > work, basically just backporting occasional security fixes.
> > So much as a spontaneous suggestion.
> 
> Extending the minor-release support period might be possible, but that
> would depend on portmgr and secteam and I can't speak for them.  One issue
> which would certainly come up is kernel module packages -- our packages
> are built for each stable branch on the oldest currently supported release,
> which means that e.g. new features in 14.1 can't be used until 14.0 is EoL;
> this is a problem particularly for graphics drivers.

Hi.
How do you think about flavorizing kmod ports in kmod.mk and provide
pkgs for latest patch release (like 14.0-p8) of all supported
point releases (like 14.0) [1]?
Does it look possible and feasible?

I think main and stable branch users would rebuild kmods habitally,
so providing kmods for supported releases may be sufficient.

[1]
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/cant-log-in-with-graphics-drm-515-kmod.94155/#post-662490

> 
> -- 
> Colin Percival
> FreeBSD Release Engineering Lead & EC2 platform maintainer
> Founder, Tarsnap | www.tarsnap.com | Online backups for the truly paranoid


-- 
Tomoaki AOKI    <junchoon@dec.sakura.ne.jp>