Lifetime of FreeBSD branches

[Kris Kennaway]

On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 10:45:48AM +0900, Joel wrote:
> Random comment from the peanut gallery, but ...
> 
> > >> 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). See also
> > > http://www.freebsd.org/ports/ for the "official" statement.
> > 
> > Right, i didnt think so. Debian is a volunteer project too, and their
> > packaging system supports all of their branches. I guess i should look
> > into rolling my own packages, to be sure. And yes, i realize that we just
> > dont have an infrastructure for something like this.
> 
> I'm thinking that, if a company really doesn't have the infrastructure,
> there are several good options. You mention Linux. MacOSX is closer to
> the BSDs than Linux in many ways, tends to have relatively long-term
> stability, and you can pay Apple for a rather high level of support if
> you join their developer's program.
> 
> The best option, however, may be to invest in the infrastructure -- a
> long term relationship with a qualified contractor, or even an employee
> whose primary duty would be to (learn how to) do the heavy lifting on
> backporting and upgrading. That way, the OS itself becomes more a part
> of the company's resources.

Didn't someone announce a few months ago that they were going to work
on supporting ports with older releases?  I'm sure they'd welcome
support, whether financial, material or otherwise.

Kris
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/attachments/20050523/a93d0612/attachment.bin