release cycle

[Bruce A. Mah]

If memory serves me right, LI Xin wrote:
> Hi, Erik,
> 
> Erik Trulsson wrote:
>> On Tue, May 29, 2007 at 11:45:15AM +0200, Volker wrote:
> [...]
>>> I know there's a release cycle for 7-CURRENT planned next June but
>>> IMHO it can be delayed for some weeks.
>>>
>>> What does the core and releng team think? It might do good.
>> A quick release cycle for a release from -STABLE sounds like a bad idea.
>> There have been enough new things that have gone into the 6-STABLE branch
>> that a full release cycle seems warranted.
> 
> I would say that just tagging -STABLE tree as "RELEASE" is a very bad
> idea, however, it would not be too bad if we take RELENG_6_2 as a
> codebase and add the following bugfixes:
> 
>  - zonelim fixes (very helpful for heavy loaded systems).
>  - some socket locking fixes (settled for a long time).
>  - driver updates, like RAID driver bugfixes.
> 
> Therefore, from src/'s view, I think it would not be too bad to make a
> point release that merges some (well tested) bugfixes in, or at least,
> provide a patchset as an errata for 6.2-R.

We've done point releases in the past but only in cases where there were
severe problems and/or regressions with released versions.  Look at the
announcements and release notes for 4.6.2-RELEASE and
5.2.1-RELEASE...these were the two most recent instances where we did
this.  There's a reason for this...it's a lot of effort.

Folks should realize that making a new release (even a new point
release) is not just a matter of tagging the tree and typing "make
release".  We (re@) need to figure out exactly what bugs are to be
fixed, get the changes merged and tested, build at least one release
candidate, get that tested, and finally build a set of RELEASE bits and
push them out.

And that's just the src/ part.  The original poster was mostly concerned
about the X.org upgrade, which as we all know lives in the ports/ tree.
 If we were to do a "point release" we'd basically require a complete
port freeze and package build run.  I believe that we did do that for
both 4.6.2-RELEASE and 5.2.1-RELEASE.  As someone's pointed out, the
ports committers are still fixing up some of the rough edges around the
X.org update, so that part of the tree isn't even ready to go yet.

The way I see it (and this is just my personal opinion, not an official
statement from re@), doing a point release now would be a distraction
from our next scheduled release, which is 7.0.

Bruce.

PS.  This having been said I know there are some kernel fixes that were
candidates for errata against 6.2-RELEASE...I'm not sure what their
current state is.  I'd like to see some of these get applied to RELENG_6_2.


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