5 ms·

X-Istence, the announcement is very straight forward ... but for the lazy it's essentially: Starting with 11, the following will happen: * All major releases

X-Istence, the announcement is very straight forward ... but for the lazy it's essentially: Starting with 11, the following will happen: * All major releases (e.g. 11) will be supported for no less than 5 years * The N+1 major release (e.g. 12) won't happen any earlier than 2 years after the previous major release (e.g. 11) is released. * Whenever a new point release is made (e.g. 11.1) all previous point releases will be deprecated after 3 months (e.g. 11.0) * All stated support timeliness for pre-11 releases will continue as stated before

cperciva 12y ago
11 will be supported for no less than 5 years FWIW, this was how long we typically supported releases anyway -- FreeBSD 6.x was supported from November 2005 until November 2010, FreeBSD 7.x was supported from February 2008 until February 2013, FreeBSD 8.x from November 2009 until June 2015, and FreeBSD 9.x from January 2012 until December 2016 -- but we heard from users that a promise was far more useful than a vague "well, typically...". Whenever a new point release is made (e.g. 11.1) all previous point releases will be deprecated after 3 months (e.g. 11.0) This is really the most important change, and addresses a problem we've had for a while: When a point release comes out, we have no idea how long it will be until the next point release. For both users and the security team, knowing the end of the support period relative to the arrival of the next point release (i.e., the overlap time) turns out to be more important than knowing the end of the support period relative to the start of the support period.
X-Istence 12y ago
Please don't call me lazy. I tried to understand the announcement and it just didn't make a whole lot of sense so I asked questions about it. @cperciva answered those questions for me in a much more pleasant way than you did. That being said, the reason I am confused is because it doesn't really change anything. Releases were already for the most part supported for 5 years, and new releases were already cut once every two years (look at 9.0-RELEASE and 10.0-RELEASE).
- cperciva 12y ago
  it doesn't really change anything The timeline for dropping support of point releases is important. The rest is mainly about improving communication: Many users were not aware that we supported releases for 5 years, for example, because all they ever saw was the advertised "12 months" or "24 months" for point releases.
  - X-Istence 12y ago
    Yes, the understanding for how long point releases will be supported makes a lot of sense and will definitely help. The rest (5 year support timeline) was already something I understood from having followed the project for some time, I just didn't understand if this announcement changed my understanding thereof.
vacri 12y ago
Phrases like "will not occur before two years after" are not particularly straight-forward. I found some of the prose in this release curly and baroque; if you have to re-read a sentence a few times to get the meaning right, it's not clear language.

cperciva 12y ago

11 will be supported for no less than 5 years FWIW, this was how long we typically supported releases anyway -- FreeBSD 6.x was supported from November 2005 until November 2010, FreeBSD 7.x was supported from February 2008 until February 2013, FreeBSD 8.x from November 2009 until June 2015, and FreeBSD 9.x from January 2012 until December 2016 -- but we heard from users that a promise was far more useful than a vague "well, typically...". Whenever a new point release is made (e.g. 11.1) all previous point releases will be deprecated after 3 months (e.g. 11.0) This is really the most important change, and addresses a problem we've had for a while: When a point release comes out, we have no idea how long it will be until the next point release. For both users and the security team, knowing the end of the support period relative to the arrival of the next point release (i.e., the overlap time) turns out to be more important than knowing the end of the support period relative to the start of the support period.

X-Istence 12y ago

Please don't call me lazy. I tried to understand the announcement and it just didn't make a whole lot of sense so I asked questions about it. @cperciva answered those questions for me in a much more pleasant way than you did. That being said, the reason I am confused is because it doesn't really change anything. Releases were already for the most part supported for 5 years, and new releases were already cut once every two years (look at 9.0-RELEASE and 10.0-RELEASE).

cperciva 12y ago
it doesn't really change anything The timeline for dropping support of point releases is important. The rest is mainly about improving communication: Many users were not aware that we supported releases for 5 years, for example, because all they ever saw was the advertised "12 months" or "24 months" for point releases.
- X-Istence 12y ago
  Yes, the understanding for how long point releases will be supported makes a lot of sense and will definitely help. The rest (5 year support timeline) was already something I understood from having followed the project for some time, I just didn't understand if this announcement changed my understanding thereof.

vacri 12y ago

Phrases like "will not occur before two years after" are not particularly straight-forward. I found some of the prose in this release curly and baroque; if you have to re-read a sentence a few times to get the meaning right, it's not clear language.