Lifetime of FreeBSD branches

[Ion-Mihai Tetcu]

On Mon, 23 May 2005 23:08:18 +0200
"Simon L. Nielsen" <simon at nitro.dk> wrote:

> On 2005.05.23 16:51:18 -0400, Mike Jakubik wrote:
> > On Mon, May 23, 2005 3:42 pm, Colin Percival said:
> > 
> > > http://www.freebsd.org/security/
> > >
> > > In addition to the material there (which is concerned with existing
> > > releases), FreeBSD 5.x is expected to be supported until late 2007
> > > (FreeBSD 5.5 plus two
> > > years), and FreeBSD 6.x will probably be supported until early 2009 (the
> > > last FreeBSD 6.x release plus two years).
> > 
> > Thanks for the info guys. Does this "security support" also mean that
> > current ports will be compatible with the release?
> 
> No, there are no guarantees about that.  The ports/ people generally
> try to make things work with older releases, but there are no
> gurantees there.  It's simply too much work to make such guarantees,
> and this is after all an volunteer project (for most parts anyway).

Not only work, but also a lack of resources; for example I just received
a report from a 4.11 user regarding of of my ports that I'm unable to
reproduce on my 5-STABLE and I don't have a 4.11 machine. In this case I
strongly suspect a local problem, but if it is not I'll be forced to
install a 4.11. Of course, is impossible to do this for all (supported
branches x supported platforms), hence the "official" statement from
http://www.freebsd.org/ports/. Before each release we have a "ports
freeze" period when (almost) no update to the ports is made but our time
is dedicated to make sure our ports work on that release.




-- 
IOnut
Unregistered ;) FreeBSD "user"