release-engineering branches (was Re: kernel panic in if_ppp.c)

[Julian Elischer]

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004, Jon Noack wrote:

> On 4/15/2004 2:13 PM, Robert Watson wrote:
> > Currently, this fix doesn't fit the charter for the RELENG_5_2 branch,
> > which is focussed on security-only fixes.  However, there's an on-going
> > discussion of broadening the scope of the current security branches to
> > release-engineering branches.  If this happens, I'll merge it to that
> > branch also (feel free to remind me if I forget :-).
> 
> This is a fabulous idea.  I know it means a little more work, but I can 
> think of several situations where I had to manually patch a release 
> branch (or run -STABLE or -CURRENT) because I needed a simple bugfix. 
> Broadening the scope to make them release-engineering branches would 
> have saved me from this extra work.  I think it increases the 
> "durability" of releases, allowing people to more strictly use just 
> releases.  As a person responsible for FreeBSD machines in production, I 
> find this highly desirable.  I can see definite complications (like the 
> MFC rules for the branch -- recent changes in commit permissions to 
> require an "Approved by:" line should help, though), but my opinion is 
> that this is worthwhile.



yes I've been pushing for this, as I am also reponsible for production
machines.. (about a thousand of them)

We currently keep a separate cvs repository of 'patches' and added files
that we apply automatically when we make our system images..
but it's a lot of work for p[eople just getting started to set that sort
of infrastructure up.
 
> 
> Jon Noack
> 
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