8 ms·

Note that this is FreeBSD-CURRENT only, i.e. the development branch. This does not affect FreeBSD releases.

by emaste 12y ago

tptacek 12y ago
Word on Twitter is that there are some pretty major companies on -CURRENT.
- teamhappy 12y ago
  Names/sources/anything?
  - X-Istence 12y ago
    Apparently NetFlix follows -CURRENT.
    - icantthinkofone 12y ago
      Define "follow". My company "follows" development but does not run production servers with it.
      - mikecb 12y ago
        I found only an unverified but specific claim in an ars forum thread that they run current on their CDN: http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1262749&start=200 http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1262749&sta...
      - X-Istence 12y ago
        This was a comment I pulled off my Twitter timeline. Hence the apparently.
        tptacek 12y ago
        Same.
        bsdimp 12y ago
        Netflix has said publicly that they run FreeBSD 10 stable. Here's a slide deck from 2013 that says they were running FreeBSD 9 at the time.
    - emaste 12y ago
      There's a lot of public evidence of NetFlix's use of FreeBSD and their desire to generally stay up-to-date. I'm not aware of any credible statement that they're actually on -CURRENT though, and even if they were at some point they may not have updated since then. They are heavily involved in FreeBSD development and I'm sure they're keeping on top of developments in -CURRENT, but I believe they are not using affected versions anywhere in production.
      - bsdimp 12y ago
        You can find the following slides from BSDCan 2013 that state Netflix runs FreeBSD 9. https://people.freebsd.org/~scottl/Netflix-BSDCan-20130515.pdf https://people.freebsd.org/~scottl/Netflix-BSDCan-20130515.p...
    - barkingcat 12y ago
      Even if someone says they do, I don't believe it. As someone who runs -CURRENT on vm's and physical hardware, it's not stable to do anything aside from development and testing on it, and it's not meant to be stable as well on purpose. Unless Netflix enjoys filesystem wipes, file corruptions, and extremely reduced performance due to kernel level debugging flags that are enabled by default (and often can't be disabled due to ongoing development efforts), then they are not running -CURRENT. Remember, -CURRENT runs slowly because of debugging code!!
- sparaker 12y ago
  Well they should be on stable, that is what stable branch is for.
- shin_lao 12y ago
  That is pretty stupid of them.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  It seems reasonable to want to keep a system around to test upcoming releases on. It does not seem reasonable to run that in production.
- numbsafari 12y ago
  Then they deserve what they get. Honestly, this is probably some kind of confusion over a company or two that has -CURRENT as an upstream to their own fork of the OS because they are reliant on some kind of new changes in the system that aren't in -STABLE. Even if that's the case, you'd hope they'd be taking extra special precautions considering what they are doing.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    I agree with you in principle but I think in practice you'd need to give a little bit of leeway here because 'CURRENT' is a very suggestive name. And it does not suggest 'Do not use for production'. It rather suggests the opposite.
    - Consultant32452 12y ago
      When I read "CURRENT" I assumed that was the label for the most current stable release. I would expect NIGHTLY or ALPHA/BETA for something that shouldn't be used for important things.
      - barkingcat 12y ago
        I think you should learn and read about what you're downloading and running in production (given your hypothetical example). It's basic literacy. For example, would you go to Linus's github: https://github.com/torvalds/linux https://github.com/torvalds/linux and just start downloading that and try running it verbatim in production because "oh! it's Linus's branch! Linus makes Linux. It is Linux!" and then complain because it's not an actual distribution? Because that's how you read in your comment. The linux development kernel is called "mainline" Would you want them to change it to Nightly or Alpha?
        PhasmaFelis 12y ago
        If you give inaccurate information and then correct it in the manual, you still gave inaccurate information.
- FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
  It's entirely possible that a lot of people don't know what -CURRENT really means if they're new to FreeBSD. They could be on 10.1 and think that that means that they're on -CURRENT, and thus affected by this bug, but they're not.
- takeda 12y ago
  The -CURRENT is absolute bleeding edge, it is what FreeBSD 11 is going to be in about two years. Are you sure you're not mistaking it with -STABLE which is the bleeding edge of 10.x? I'm more inclined to believe that there major companies are running on -STABLE which is still somewhat risky, but at least typically everything that is there was somewhat tested.
- istvan__ 12y ago
  I guess you have to be aware of the trade offs when choosing a platform. I hope they were.
dlitz 12y ago
Right, which means that there will be a disproportionate number of FreeBSD developers running it. These developers have commit access to the source tree, including -STABLE and -RELEASE.

Note that this is FreeBSD-CURRENT only, i.e. the development branch. This does not affect FreeBSD releases.

by emaste 12y ago

Note that this is FreeBSD-CURRENT only, i.e. the development branch. This does not affect FreeBSD releases.

tptacek 12y ago

Word on Twitter is that there are some pretty major companies on -CURRENT.

teamhappy 12y ago
Names/sources/anything?
- X-Istence 12y ago
  Apparently NetFlix follows -CURRENT.
  - icantthinkofone 12y ago
    Define "follow". My company "follows" development but does not run production servers with it.
    - mikecb 12y ago
      I found only an unverified but specific claim in an ars forum thread that they run current on their CDN: http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1262749&start=200 http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1262749&sta...
    - X-Istence 12y ago
      This was a comment I pulled off my Twitter timeline. Hence the apparently.
      - tptacek 12y ago
        Same.
        bsdimp 12y ago
        Netflix has said publicly that they run FreeBSD 10 stable. Here's a slide deck from 2013 that says they were running FreeBSD 9 at the time.
  - emaste 12y ago
    There's a lot of public evidence of NetFlix's use of FreeBSD and their desire to generally stay up-to-date. I'm not aware of any credible statement that they're actually on -CURRENT though, and even if they were at some point they may not have updated since then. They are heavily involved in FreeBSD development and I'm sure they're keeping on top of developments in -CURRENT, but I believe they are not using affected versions anywhere in production.
    - bsdimp 12y ago
      You can find the following slides from BSDCan 2013 that state Netflix runs FreeBSD 9. https://people.freebsd.org/~scottl/Netflix-BSDCan-20130515.pdf https://people.freebsd.org/~scottl/Netflix-BSDCan-20130515.p...
  - barkingcat 12y ago
    Even if someone says they do, I don't believe it. As someone who runs -CURRENT on vm's and physical hardware, it's not stable to do anything aside from development and testing on it, and it's not meant to be stable as well on purpose. Unless Netflix enjoys filesystem wipes, file corruptions, and extremely reduced performance due to kernel level debugging flags that are enabled by default (and often can't be disabled due to ongoing development efforts), then they are not running -CURRENT. Remember, -CURRENT runs slowly because of debugging code!!
sparaker 12y ago
Well they should be on stable, that is what stable branch is for.
shin_lao 12y ago
That is pretty stupid of them.
tomjen3 12y ago
It seems reasonable to want to keep a system around to test upcoming releases on. It does not seem reasonable to run that in production.
numbsafari 12y ago
Then they deserve what they get. Honestly, this is probably some kind of confusion over a company or two that has -CURRENT as an upstream to their own fork of the OS because they are reliant on some kind of new changes in the system that aren't in -STABLE. Even if that's the case, you'd hope they'd be taking extra special precautions considering what they are doing.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  I agree with you in principle but I think in practice you'd need to give a little bit of leeway here because 'CURRENT' is a very suggestive name. And it does not suggest 'Do not use for production'. It rather suggests the opposite.
  - Consultant32452 12y ago
    When I read "CURRENT" I assumed that was the label for the most current stable release. I would expect NIGHTLY or ALPHA/BETA for something that shouldn't be used for important things.
    - barkingcat 12y ago
      I think you should learn and read about what you're downloading and running in production (given your hypothetical example). It's basic literacy. For example, would you go to Linus's github: https://github.com/torvalds/linux https://github.com/torvalds/linux and just start downloading that and try running it verbatim in production because "oh! it's Linus's branch! Linus makes Linux. It is Linux!" and then complain because it's not an actual distribution? Because that's how you read in your comment. The linux development kernel is called "mainline" Would you want them to change it to Nightly or Alpha?
      - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
        If you give inaccurate information and then correct it in the manual, you still gave inaccurate information.
FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
It's entirely possible that a lot of people don't know what -CURRENT really means if they're new to FreeBSD. They could be on 10.1 and think that that means that they're on -CURRENT, and thus affected by this bug, but they're not.
takeda 12y ago
The -CURRENT is absolute bleeding edge, it is what FreeBSD 11 is going to be in about two years. Are you sure you're not mistaking it with -STABLE which is the bleeding edge of 10.x? I'm more inclined to believe that there major companies are running on -STABLE which is still somewhat risky, but at least typically everything that is there was somewhat tested.
istvan__ 12y ago
I guess you have to be aware of the trade offs when choosing a platform. I hope they were.

dlitz 12y ago

Right, which means that there will be a disproportionate number of FreeBSD developers running it. These developers have commit access to the source tree, including -STABLE and -RELEASE.