4.8-RELEASE vs SA-03:07

[Wes Peters]

On Wednesday 02 April 2003 00:26, Andy Sparrow wrote:
>
> I don't really understand why the Release Engineering is done the way
> it is. When I was releasing commercial software, I'd simply lock and
> tag the tree with a unique, temporary, label, check out a clean tree
> against that label, unlock the tree and build and package the software.

When you were releasing commercial software, you probably weren't working 
with a team of 200+ developers scattered all over the globe, working in 
most every timezone, most of whom have never met each other face to face.  
The "gating effect" enforced by the way FreeBSD does releases helps 
everyone involved in the process spend a bit of time twice a year on 
bringing development work back to a stable focal point.  This is not a 
bad thing.  

Long-term development projects are handled on long-lived branches like the 
initial 5.x branch; several development projects are already waiting in 
the wings for 6-current as soon as 5-current becomes 5-stable.

This procedure isn't set in stone, we're still learning as we go here, but 
there is SOME method to our madness.

If you want to dive into the process and get your hands dirty, send email 
to re@ AFTER the release is done.  I'm sure you can find some way to 
help.  Just don't pester them at the moment, unless you know of a driver 
or two that can be hacked out, OK?  ;^)

-- 

        Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?

Wes Peters                                               wes at softweyr.com