Release schedules

[Matthew Seaman]

Jerry wrote:

> My biggest gripe with the entire update schedule is that the ports
> freeze has been frozen longer than my wife. Maybe having two separate
> ports, one for the current version and one for the RC? version might
> work better. I have never fully understood why the ports had to be
> frozen anyway. Why can there not be two separate entities, the current
> version and the beta one?

Ports aren't actually frozen at the moment.  Neither are they completely
open for any sort of updates.  Instead they're in a 'slush' -- no sweeping
changes permitted, no major changes to the infrastructure (ie. bsd.ports.mk,
that sort of thing).  This allows the RELEASE_7_1_0 tag to be slid forward in
the event of critical or security updates to specific ports.  For instance,
see:

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/databases/phpmyadmin/Makefile?only_with_tag=RELEASE_7_1_0

That update was committed two days ago, and as it's a security update it has
been tagged as RELEASE_7_1_0, so will in principle appear on the 7.1-isos. (I
can't remember if phpmyadmin actually is one of the packages available on the
install CDs or not.  Given its popularity, quite possibly.)

Docs are in a similar 'slush' state, but in this case it's primarily to allow
the various translation teams to synch the various language versions to the
original language the docco was written in (almost always English, but not
entirely)

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
                                                  Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
                                                  Kent, CT11 9PW

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