Fast releases demand binary updates.. (Was: Release schedule for 2006)

[Matthew D. Fuller]

[ -stable yanked from CC by a flip of a coin ]

On Fri, Dec 23, 2005 at 10:02:51AM +0000 I heard the voice of
Brian Candler, and lo! it spake thus:
> 
> That's good for you and a certain clan of highly experienced FreeBSD
> system administrators. However I believe that there's a far larger
> pool of people for whom binary installs and upgrades makes much more
> sense.

Oh, yes.  I've almost precisely zero interest in such things myself,
but I'm quite aware that other people want them for both irrational
and thoroughly sensible reasons.  Me, I don't remember the last time
ANY system I ran was on a -RELEASE longer than it took to install and
pull up to the latest along whatever branch I thought appropriate for
it, but that's me.  With any luck, none of the people gasping in
horror and calling for smelling salts at the thought will ever know
what services they use end up coming from boxes I control   8-}

I'm just in this fray for kicks, because I think the "BSD will implode
if we start releasing more often without this" perspective is a little
nutty.  I don't see how it really makes anything materially worse than
it currently is for that group of people (sure, it may be pretty bad
now, but I don't really buy that releasing more often makes it all
that much worse).


-- 
Matthew Fuller     (MF4839)   |  fullermd at over-yonder.net
Systems/Network Administrator |  http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/
           On the Internet, nobody can hear you scream.