challenge: end of life for 6.2 is premature with buggy 6.3

[Jo Rhett]

On Jun 5, 2008, at 8:39 AM, Kris Kennaway wrote:
> There has been nothing of value offered in this thread, and it's  
> only served to piss off a number of developers who already put huge  
> amounts of volunteer time into supporting FreeBSD, and who take  
> pride in the quality of their work.

I'm honestly sorry to hear that.  I tried very hard with the very  
limited time I had available to me to phrase it clearly as a policy/ 
support issue and not to put the blame on any developer.  There are  
number of issues in projects I support that are waiting on time from  
me too, so I can hardly point any fingers in that direction.  We *all*  
have less time to work on this stuff than we might want.

> Asking the volunteers to
> a) fix unspecified problems that the submitter will not name in  
> detail but which are OMG SHOWSTOPPER YOU MUST FIX

In rereading my quotes I may have not been clear on something.  The  
vast majority of these bugs have already been fixed. ("not in a state  
that needs help identifying" was what I said trying to cover both that  
and known bugs without a fix yet)

However, the fixes are not available in a -RELEASE version of the  
operating system.  This is why EoLing 6.2 and forcing people to  
upgrade to a release with lots of known issues is a problem.

Obviously you have to choose between developer time/effort to create a  
release candidate and the effort required to backdate security patches  
to 6.2.  I don't know the reasons (which is why I created this thread)  
but my guess was the latter was easier than the former...

> b) donate even more unpaid time to supporting branches because it  
> seems like a good "compromise" (!)
> shows a complete failure of understanding and frankly beggars belief.

Although the insults aren't helpful, I agree with you.  I created this  
thread because I have a "failure of understanding".  I'd appreciate  
some enlightenment of the real costs involved (and how we could help  
if possible).  That's why I created this thread.

> Such people are not acting as supporters of the project, however  
> well-intentioned they may believe themselves to be.


You seem quite willing to make enemies.  I'm not your enemy, and we'd  
both probably get a lot more work done if you stopped treating me like  
one.

-- 
Jo Rhett
Net Consonance : consonant endings by net philanthropy, open source  
and other randomness