Will 5.4 be an "Extended Life" release?

[Brett Glass]

At 09:39 AM 4/18/2005, Steve Ames wrote:
  
>Nothing stops someone other than the normal RE team from rolling something
>release-esque (like a 4.X snapshot) and requesting that it be made available
>for download on the FreeBSD sites.... or rolling your own release for
>internal use. 

Perhaps. But then, all of the software that recognizes "official" releases
and does things like download ports, etc. won't work.

>The RE team is already pretty booked for 5.X releases and,
>possibly, the 6.0 release this year. I would really prefer to keep them on
>that rather than delaying any of this for a 4.X release. That said a
>4.11-20050501 (or thereabouts) snapshot/mini-release would probably keep
>most people pretty happy while they move forward to 5.X.

How about labeling a snapshot 4.11.5, then? With a rebuild of the ports, etc.
that can be accessed online? (One of the big problems with using a snapshot
is that there's no corresponding snapshot of the ports and packages online.
And software like Colin's "FreeBSD-update" doesn't seem to know what to do
with it.)

>Lastly... 5.3 has been working brilliantly for me on every system I
>installed it on. 5.4 is looking even better.

I am finding them both to be slower than 4.x, and am still encountering
some quirky hangs and some ports that won't build. YMMV, of course.

>Any 4.X snapshot should be
>considered a stopgap measure until you have time/resources to move onward to
>5.4.

I do consider 4.x to be a stopgap measure... but I am worried that 5.4-RELEASE
might not have the speed, stability, and compatibility I need for production
work and that I could be forced to keep using that stopgap until the next
major release. I hope that this is not the case, but 5.4 is already at RC2.

--Brett