4.8-Release disk3 and disk4

[Peter Jeremy]

On 2003-Apr-07 12:40:38 -0700, Jim Pazarena <paz at qcislands.net> wrote:
>I've never read a posting which explains why the ftp site doesn't
>have a full size disc 2 and is missing disk 3 & 4 for v5.0

The simple explanation is that this is all the FreeBSD project itself
creates.  The ports packages that filled up CD's 2, 3 and 4 are no
longer part of the "official" FreeBSD -RELEASE image.

Back when the Project was associated with Walnut Creek, Walnut Creek
paid the Project (by employing the Release Engineer) to create a 4-CD
release set and the entire 4-CD set was make available via the Walnut
Creek FTP site (which hosted ftp.FreeBSD.org).  FreeBSD is no longer
closely linked to any CD vendor and the Project has decided that the
effort involved in integrating the ports collection into the -RELEASE
CDs can be better utilised elsewhere.

Amongst the reasons are:
1) The ports collection no longer comes anywhere near fitting onto 4
   CDs.  The decision of what to include or exclude (and how many disks
   to offer) is a value judgement which forms part of the "value add"
   by the various vendors.
2) At least one vendor provides a DVD release and CD images are not a
   appropriate path to generate a -RELEASE DVD.
3) The individual ports distfiles and packages are already available
   via FTP.  You are welcome to fetch the ports that are relevant to
   yourself rather than having to fetch 2.5GB of CD images.

Peter