AFAIK OpenBSD has 2 releases a year - which means, that devs are trying to

keep the packages and OS itself "fresh". But I'm wondering: wouldn't be in

such situation reasonable to switch to s.c. "rolling release" model - and

even more convenient for both devs and users?

--

				pozdrawiam / regards
						Zbigniew Baniewski

I as a user am very happy with the way this is organised now, I wouldn't

mind having only 1 release a year if eventually 2 per year get's to much.

But nothing faster please.
I'm mostly using snapshots but I am very happy that stable exists and the

way it is maintained.
-sm

That's called -current.

You mean: syncing with that branch gives in effect what I was writing about?

Didn't try it... maybe I should.

--

				pozdrawiam / regards
						Zbigniew Baniewski

Maybe; it's the development head, so it requires monitoring the source

changes when upgrading your system and occasionally (rarely) breaks.

There are also snapshots, which is close to HEAD, and built close to

daily for more popular architectures.

the devs have been hard at work for many years, and I'd be willing to

bet that they like the system they've come up with. If they didn't,

they'd change it.
No harsh intentions, just logic.
Regards,

~Jason

But it's pretty valid to ask? I thought, that's the mailing lists are for.
Maybe I'm wrong.

--

				pozdrawiam / regards
						Zbigniew Baniewski

No, it's a valid question. There are hints of answers and even answers if

you read the mailing-list archives, but it's possible to overlook them.
Let me explain things to you another way.
OpenBSD tries to have quality releases, with several goals. Those goals

include keeping support for a variety of non mainstream architectures alive.

There are various reasons for that, one of which being that it is useful

for i386/amd64, because some other arches are good at finding some classes

of bugs that affect all arches, but are more apparent on strict alignment

architectures (for instance). It's also good because it attracts kernel and

driver developers.
With that in mind, OpenBSD-current is always high quality, in theory.

In practice, comes release time, building and testing the release on each

and every arch weeds out hundreds of bugs... and takes a big chunk of time

and nerves out of Theo, and some other people involved. Thus the very quick

reaction.
We're trying hard to go up, up, up and have better and better releases.
If you read the archives, you'll see lots of calls to test things, in a

real community spirit, instead of the current `gimme, gimme, gimme' frame

of mind a lot of our users have...
so there have been some hard choices with respect to support, especially

wrt backporting stuff to -stable, or actually making these releases.
There will be hard choices in the future, undoubtedly.
Hence the harsh reactions from the people involved in the release process.
Just read the ml around `release build time' (which was a few months back,

actually, that's how slow the release process is), and you'll figure out

for yourself why `a release a month' is a bad idea, and also why the people

involved reacted so violently to your apparently innocuous email...

it kind-of implies the release process is something trivial you can change

as you want, which it obviously is not... and it also dismisses the ten

years of experience that our fearless leader has. Kind of insulting, don't

...
[ message continues ]

Thanks a lot for explanation.

--

ZB

OpenBSD has 2 official releases a year, plus a daily snapshot.
Three choices.
It is obvious where the developers play.  But it hard to see how some

fictional model chosen by very small Linux distributions would benefit

us.

Not sure about amount of time sacrificed each time to prepare new complete

release... but perhaps it could be spared, if the system+packages is

"refreshed" piece-by-piece / month-by-month?
From the users' point of view: no need to reinstall at all - while having

always the latest release (just because there's only that "latest").
Above are my rather theoretical thoughts... not sure, just asking.

--

				pozdrawiam / regards
						Zbigniew Baniewski

Tell ya what: try it and see.
First you'll need to get at least one machine from each of our

supported platforms.
Then you'll need to do builds. Then you'll need to test throughly.

Test everything in base against everything else, in all kinds of

strange configurations and with other broken software that people

might be forced to use. And don't forget about all the ports people

use - you could probably spend most of a week just compiling ports. So

much time compiling and testing that you've got no time for

development. There's a reason why we have tree locks and testing

windows and snapshot re-spins before a release... and and you want us

to do this 12 times a year? I assume you've sent a huge donation so we

can have triply replicated build labs and a staff of test engineers to
Great, so now everyone has to keep track of what goes on in every

monthly release? Sheer lunacy.
"no need to reinstall" - what are you smoking? Are you advocating that

we just magically start replacing binaries on everyones machines or

that people stop upgrading? You're going to have some downtime while

you put new kernels in. Also, this sounds like you haven't ever

actually tried upgrading an openbsd machine. If you get the tarballs

on a local source before you start, it takes just a couple of minutes

longer than the theoretical shortest time possible.
The latest release happens in May and November - makes it really easy

to plan your upgrades. You do have a patch policy for all your

important machines, right? If that's not good enough, then run

current, file good bugs and help test fixes.
--

GDB has a 'break' feature; why doesn't it have 'fix' too?

Is it possible to participate in this mailing list without being insulted

for asking a question, being called by names and so on?

--

				pozdrawiam / regards
						Zbigniew Baniewski

Yes. Easily.

However, you do NOT get to set anyone's agenda,

not even your own.
The developers do this the way they want to.

They accomplish a lot with extremely limited resources.

You and I do not even get to have an opinion.

No, not easily.  Only certain questions can be asked without meriting

insult.  The casting of an uninsult-worthy question is difficult.
This is because of semantic problem, in that "to question" in list

language has the primary meaning "to criticize", and "to criticize"

has the sole meaning, "to slander, deprecate, mock, or ridicule"

and by implication, "to demand changes".
The usual broader-world meaning of "to question" is "to request
Right.
The OpenBSD core has this bifurcated nature: they do not accept

questions about their policy, offering the project's results on a

strict take-it-or-leave-it basis.  They do not pretend, in other

words, to have a user base that pays for the product and that as

consumers have the final say in whether the product succeeds or

fails.  This attitude is brutally (some might say "inhumanly")

honest, easily articulated and frequently understood.  Sometimes,

however, people insist that OpenBSD fulfill a "democratic-socialist"

political model including universal suffrage, or a market-driven

"business" model, with a sovereign consumer.
On the other hand, the core really-really likes:

        a) fawning gratitude, and I do mean fawning, almost like

that which drips from the slack jaws of a religious worshipper, but

also like that from a doting, hovering mother, or syrupy lover,

        b) regular "donations" in cash or kind or purchase of

the product(s).
These two tines of the fork -- absolute autonomy on product design

and policy and a hunger for fawning worship and donations --

characterize a monopolistic religion, not a business or demo-socialist

political entity.  (OpenBSD does not pretend, I repeat, to be a

business or any sort of democracy.)
The term "OpenBSD core" is a misnomer.  Like the medieval Catholic

church, there is no "core/rim" division. The "users" constitute a

"laity", who, seeking heaven and fearing hell, need the sacraments,

and approach the Church, which is constituted solely of the "clergy",

for them.  In return, ...
[ message continues ]

Of course, you have right to not have your own opinion.
OK, quitting the thread - good night, sleep tight.

--

        You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the

Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the

parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.

                -- Sherlock Holmes

The fact that you ask this indicates a strong misunderstanding as to

how package software has to be handled today.  You oversimplify the

effort involved massively.
Basically you are asking that we do 12 releases a year, for 13 cpu

architectures and 16 machine architectures.  
Right now, including the slowest architectures, it takes us a FULL

MONTH to build the packages for a release.  Some of the slower

architectures are even building on multiple machines in parallel, to

speed things up.  A few developers watch these machines and cope with

breakage, which hopefully does not come, hoping that in the four

months leading up to a release they have been careful enough so that

at release time the source tree is clean and works on those machines.
An alternative response... is that you are asking that we do 12

release a year for one or two "favored" architectures, and in the

process break all the others.  Like NetBSD and FreeBSD have, and quite

a few Linux sub-projects, who choose to grade architectures based on

worthiness.
Yes, that is exactly what you are asking.  There are no other ways to

handle this amount of work.  If you were a worker in the project, you

would know this.  But if you _respected the workers_, you would know

this too.
As an alternative, our project makes the source tree available minute

by minute, as we work on it, so that people can be aware of the scope

of the work.  yet you still think you can come to our lists and ask
Just a theoretical thought, eh.  Just asking... right.  Yes, it is

easy and OK to ask uneducated questions, but it still makes the person

asking it look 'uneducated'.
Why don't you trust our processes?  Might we not have reasons for our

particular processes?  For our schedules, which we have met 23 times

in a row, 6 months apart?  Is there a reason why it should not be

trusted that we have these processes for a reason?  Is what we do now

not already good enough, considering the limited resources we have?  I

hear this chant of "gimme mo...
[ message continues ]

Yes, I'm uneducated in the area "how one's making an Unix-like system and

userland, and why such way, and not another, for instance" - and because of

this I've sent a question to the mailing list, which was - as I thought
Forget the question then. Didn't want to offence anyone.

--

				pozdrawiam / regards
						Zbigniew Baniewski

Who would buy CD's if there were a "rolling release"?  CD sales are an

important source of funding.
Every time OpenBSD makes a release, it makes news on Slashdot and other

websites.  How would OpenBSD make up for the lost publicity with a

rolling release?
Rolling releases are arguably more buggy than semi-annual releases

because less time is spent ensuring their consistency.  Some users, such

as myself, prefer the relatively bug-free semi-annual releases.