[RFC] Why FreeBSD ports should have branches by OS version

[Baho Utot]

On 6/22/2017 11:30 AM, Torsten Zuehlsdorff wrote:
> On 22.06.2017 21:26, Baho Utot wrote:
>> On 6/22/2017 10:03 AM, scratch65535 at att.net wrote:
>>> [Default] On Thu, 22 Jun 2017 14:18:56 +0200, Baptiste Daroussin
>>> <bapt at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> As usual with such proposal, where do you find the manpower to 
>>>> handle the number
>>>> of branches required (the quarterly branches are already hard to 
>>>> maintain, it is
>>>> only one branch).
>>> Please help me out here, Baptiste, because I'm apparently missing
>>> *something*.
>>>
>>> Out in industry, if you haven't enough people to do a new
>>> high-quality release every N months, and you can't get a
>>> headcount increase, then you cut the release schedule.  Can't do
>>> 4 releases a year?  Cut back to 2.  Still too many?  Cut back to
>>> 1.
>>>
>>> The alternatives to cutting the schedule are that (a) people
>>> begin burning out and quitting, (b) quality drops and your
>>> customer base begins abandoning you, or (c) both of the above.
>>>
>>> Why don't the same choices apply here?  What am I missing?
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>
>>
>> I am looking at OpenBSD to replace FreeBSD.  They have a more relaxed 
>> update schedule and that fits with what I need.
>
> Go ahead with whatever fits your needs.
>
> But since the ports-tree is a subversion repository it is really easy 
> to maintain the status you want. I do this for various customer and my 
> various server.
>
>> I am looking for a system that is very stable and doesn't do the 
>> upgrade path for the sake of it being newer.
>
> Which has various downsides. I remember for example various linux LTS 
> distros, which only apply security fixes. I discovered various bugs 
> which stay there for years, because they are not security issues - 
> they just hurt you daily. :D
>

No not really I ran LFS servers and desktops for 10 years

>> Having a "releng ports" version that goes with a releng version of 
>> the OS would be great by me.   Linux from scratch does this and it 
>> works very well. 
>
> It really does not work well. In everyday situation this results in 
> "heck we need a new server to get a new version of a needed software, 
> because we need a new linux version".
> I regularly seeing admins setting up different Ubuntu versions, 
> because at one you have PHP 7 and on the other MySQL 5.7, but not both 
> at the same Ubuntu version.

BSD != Linux so your comparison is invalid.

One could still use releng 11.0 ports with 10.3 OS could they not