FreeBSD 7.2 Release process starting...

[John Baldwin]

On Thursday 19 March 2009 5:34:12 am Robert Watson wrote:
> For me the distinction remains fuzzy, but I think a key to either approach 
> would be avoiding having to fully re-QA, do BETAs, build new packages, etc. 
> This suggests taking RELENG_6_4 on some date, perhaps rebranching if it's a 
> point release, or not if it's an ISO reroll, and bundling it with exactly 
the 
> same packages we shipped in 6.4 (etc) and bumping a few documentation parts. 
> We'd cut a release candidate just to make sure we had the bits right, ask 
> people to test install it, etc, but as there would be no new features, we'd 
> expect relatively little change. I think I wouldn't even change the proposed 
> EoL date of the branch -- 7.x is doing very well, and we need developers to 
> focus on getting 8.0 ready to ship.

Actually, a point release shouldn't be a rebranch, it would just be a new tag 
on the existing RELENG_6_4 branch.  The only difference in a point release 
vs. an errata patch is what you change the release name to 
(6.4-RELEASE-p(X+1) vs 6.4.1-RELEASE)) and whether or not you upload bits to 
the ftp servers.  If the goal is to generate ISOs that we put up for ftp, I 
think it should be a point release, but it would certainly reuse 6.4 packages 
(or have no packages).  That is, I think "ISO reroll" == "point release".  I 
also think we shouldn't upload things to ftp that aren't actual releases 
(that is, I wouldn't upload 6.4-RELEASE-p10 to ftp since we don't upload new 
release bits for every security advisory we do).

-- 
John Baldwin