[wplug] Release Engineering (WAS: [Fwd: [FreeBSD-Announce] Security Officer-supported branches update])

Brian A. Seklecki lavalamp at spiritual-machines.org
Thu Feb 22 15:22:21 EST 2007


As an interesting point of note (and, total flame-bait) on the topic of 
F/OSS release engineering, The FreeBSD Foundation actively maintained a 
stable release engineering branch (4.x), with bug fixes/new features at 
single-point releases, and security at double-point (Patch-Level) releases 
from Mar. 2000 until Feb. 2007.

All the while, maintaining general core-binary compatibility.

Ask yourself: If you're an ISV or OEM and you're looking for a secure,
stable, extensible platform that your clients` solution can exist on for
the duration of the product, which are system are you going to choose?

Redhat who kills ES/AS release support after 2-3 years and compels major
system migrations (libc, kernel)

Or....

Note: Run for the hills if you wanna keep blood off of your shirt >:}

~~BAS

-- 

> Hello Everyone,
>
> The branches supported by the FreeBSD Security Officer have been
> updated to reflect recent EoL (end-of-life) events.  The new list is
> below and at <URL: http://security.freebsd.org/ >.  FreeBSD 4.11 and
> FreeBSD 6.0 have `expired' and are no longer supported effective
> February 1, 2007.  Discussions concerning FreeBSD releases which are
> no longer supported should take place on the freebsd-eol at freebsd.org
> mailing list.
>
> This marks the end of support by the FreeBSD Security Team for the
> FreeBSD 4-STABLE branch, two years after FreeBSD 4.11-RELEASE and
> almost seven years after FreeBSD 4.0-RELEASE.   For an explanation of
> the rationale behind the EoL of FreeBSD 4.11 (and the 4-STABLE branch),
> please see my earlier mailing list post on this subject:
> 
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-security/2006-October/004111.html
>
> At this point, support for running software from the ports tree on
> FreeBSD 4.x is ceasing:  Packages for binary installations will no
> longer be built for FreeBSD 4.11, building ports from source on FreeBSD
> 4.x will no longer be supported, and the ports INDEX will no longer be
> built and made available via portsnap or the 'make fetchindex' target.
> Patches for individual ports specific for their functioning on FreeBSD
> 4.11 may still be accepted at the discretion of the port maintainer.
>
> [Excerpt from http://security.freebsd.org/ follows]
>
> FreeBSD Security Advisories
>
>    The FreeBSD Security Officer provides security advisories for
>    several branches of FreeBSD development. These are the -STABLE
>    Branches and the Security Branches. (Advisories are not issued for
>    the -CURRENT Branch.)
>
>      * There is usually only a single -STABLE branch, although during
>        the transition from one major development line to another
>        (such as from FreeBSD 5.x to 6.x), there is a time span in
>        which there are two -STABLE branches. The -STABLE branch tags
>        have names like RELENG_6. The corresponding builds have names
>        like FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE.
>
>      * Each FreeBSD Release has an associated Security Branch. The
>        Security Branch tags have names like RELENG_6_1. The
>        corresponding builds have names like FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE-p1.
>
>    Isses affecting the FreeBSD Ports Collection are covered in the
>    FreeBSD VuXML document.
>
>    Each branch is supported by the Security Officer for a limited
>    time only, and is designated as one of `Early adopter', `Normal',
>    or `Extended'.  The designation is used as a guideline for
>    determining the lifetime of the branch as follows.
>
>    Early adopter
>        Releases which are published from the -CURRENT branch will be
>        supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 6 months
>        after the release.
>
>    Normal
>        Releases which are published from a -STABLE branch will be
>        supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 12 months
>        after the release.
>
>    Extended
>        Selected releases will be supported by the Security Officer
>        for a minimum of 24 months after the release.
>
>    The current designation and estimated lifetimes of the currently
>    supported branches are given below.  The Estimated EoL (end-of-life)
>    column gives the earliest date on which that branch is likely to be
>    dropped.  Please note that these dates may be extended into the
>    future, but only extenuating circumstances would lead to a branch's
>    support being dropped earlier than the date listed.
>
> 
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
>    |  Branch   |  Release   |  Type  |  Release date  |  Estimated EoL 
|
> 
|-----------+------------+--------+----------------+-----------------|
>    |RELENG_5   |n/a         |n/a     |n/a             |May 31, 2008 
|
> 
|-----------+------------+--------+----------------+-----------------|
>    |RELENG_5_5 |5.5-RELEASE |Extended|May 25, 2006    |May 31, 2008 
|
> 
|-----------+------------+--------+----------------+-----------------|
>    |RELENG_6   |n/a         |n/a     |n/a             |last release + 
2y|
> 
|-----------+------------+--------+----------------+-----------------|
>    |RELENG_6_1 |6.1-RELEASE |Extended|May 9, 2006     |May 31, 2008 
|
> 
|-----------+------------+--------+----------------+-----------------|
>    |RELENG_6_2 |6.2-RELEASE |Normal  |January 15, 2007|January 31, 2008 
|
> 
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
>
> [End excerpt]
>


l8*
 	-lava (Brian A. Seklecki - Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
 	       http://www.spiritual-machines.org/


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