duration of the ports freeze

[Erik Trulsson]

On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 05:14:55AM -0800, David Southwell wrote:
> On Saturday 01 December 2007 Pav Lucistnik <pav at freebsd.org> answered part of 
> the question:
> > On Friday 30 November 2007 21:47:07 Jason C. Wells wrote:
> > > Peter Jeremy wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 03:04:14PM -0600, Mark Linimon wrote:
> > > >> On Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 07:50:02AM -0800, Jason C. Wells wrote:
> > > >>> It wouldn't surprise me if portmanager is hoping that KDE 4.0 will go
> > > >>> prime time real soon.  That's my big conspiracy theory.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> package builds out the door.  The Razor, and past experience, would
> >> > >> suggest that sweeping changes would delay all that significantly.
> >> > >
> >> > > As a corollary, KDE4 will not hit the ports tree until after 7.0 and
> >> > > 6.3 are released.
> .> >
> >> > We lucked out last time and got current updates of both gnome and kde.
> >> >
> >> > "It would be a pleasant surprise if portmgr were able to take KDE 4.0 to
> >> > prime time real soon."
> >> >
> >> > Later,
> >>>Jason
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >>
> >> I must say I am having difficulty understanding the policies applicable
> >> during ports freeze.
> >>
> > What criteria are used to determine whether an update is allowed or barred
> > during the freeze?
> 
> Pav Lucistnik <pav at freebsd.org> answered part of the question with this 
> interjection:
> 
> >David Southwell pí??e v so 01. 12. 2007 v 03:08 -0800:
> 
> >> What criteria are used to determine whether an update is allowed or barred 
> >> during the freeze? 
> 
> >1) Security update
> >2) Build fix on one of the release platforms
> >3) Major runtime fix
> >
> 
> This seems sensible unless:
> a) The freeze is unduly long (I would suggest more than two weeks)
> AND
> b) There is a major upgrade of a port which is used by a large proportion of 
> users.
AND
c) The upgrade is very unlikely to break things.

An upgrade to KDE or Gnome or X.org or similarily gargantuan ports (or many
smaller ports too for that matter) fail point c).


> 
> In which case I believe such major upgrades should be favourably considered. 
> Such a policy would reflect the fact that there are many users who need to 
> keep their systems up to date (especially when they workin communities where 
> multiple operating systems are in use). Allowing port freezes to extend for 
> long periods should not IMHO be allowed to conflict with the need to keep 
> major ports updated.

The ports freeze is intended to make sure the ports tree is in a stable and
well tested state for the release.  Updating major ports always carry a
great risk of breaking things thus defeating the point of the freeze.

> 
> This puts added weight to  my second question to which I am hoping for some 
> response:
> >> The freeze seems to be of longer duration than originally expected while
> >> the current inconvenience seems to growing exponentially. I appreciate the
> >> long term benefits so please do not think I am in any way critical of those
> >> who are working on this.
> >>
> >> I would hgowever like to ask, on the basis of what is being learned now,
> >> how could the length freezes be diminished on future occasions?
> >>



-- 
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013 at student.uu.se