HEADS UP: Release schedule for 2006
Scott Long
scottl at samsco.org
Fri Dec 16 00:35:05 PST 2005
Gary Kline wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 12:04:05AM -0700, Scott Long wrote:
>
>>All,
>>
>>The following is the approximate schedule for FreeBSD releases in 2006:
>>
>>Jan 30: Freeze RELENG_5 and RELENG_6
>>Mar 20: Release FreeBSD 6.1
>>Apr 3: Release FreeBSD 5.5
>>Jun 12: Freeze RELENG_6
>>Jul 31: Release FreeBSD 6.2
>>Oct 23: Freeze RELENG_6
>>Dec 11: Release FreeBSD 6.3
>>
>>A 'freeze' means that the tree will be closed to changes except with
>>specific approval, and the focus will be on producing, testing, and
>>fixing release candidates. The release dates are targets that we hope
>>to make, but we will continue with the policy of only releasing once
>>all of the showstoppers are cleared, i.e. we will release when it is
>>ready.
>>
>>FreeBSD 5
>>5.5 will be the final release from the RELENG_5 tree. We are doing it
>>to provide support for users who have committed to FreeBSD 5 and who
>>need more time to transition to FreeBSD 6. However, in order to keep
>>forward progress with FreeBSD 6, we will produce this in parallel with
>>the 6.1 release, and thus it will not be our main focus. Users who are
>>using FreeBSD 5 are strongly encouraged to evaluate FreeBSD 6. After
>>this final release, the security team will provide security update
>>support through 2007.
>
>
> Sounds like an ambitious schedule... All my FBSD servers
> are at least up to 5.3; my laptop is happy at 5.4. I have
> what I believe to be a rationalquestion. Why should I go
> beyond v5.5? More to the point, why can't minor security
> tweaks be maintained indefinitely for 5.5?
Security updates will be maintained for quite a while. However, it
takes manpower to test each proposed security change, so it's very hard
to justify doing them 'indefinitely'. The stated policy from the
security team is 2 years. So they will probably support 5.5 into
2008, but I wanted to be conservative in my statement in case they
have different plans.
> What will
> releases -6 and -7 offer that can;t reasonably be dropped
> into -5?
Significant performance and stability enhancements that simply cannot
be broken up and backported to FreeBSD 5. We are marching towards a
'Giant-less' kernel, which means continuing better SMP performance and
better UP responsiveness. With 6.0 we are finally starting to see the
benefit of the SMPng work that we've been doing for 5 years.
Scott
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