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From: j@bonnie.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: FreeBSD devlopment [Was: Sun/Solaris or Pentium/Linux...]
Date: 3 Aug 1995 10:04:12 +0200
Organization: Private U**x site, Dresden.
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References: <3vlpgk$rdk@graphite.comco.com> <3vmgmn$jt6@brasil.moneng.mei.com> <3vnme6$rtu@sundog.tiac.net>
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Jim Williams <williams@tiac.net> wrote:
>I know nothing about how FreeBSD is developed, and would like like to know
>how FreeBSD development happens.
In a slightly less `anarchic' way. :)
Briefly:
o FreeBSD is developed as a whole system, not just a kernel only. The
entire source tree is centrally maintained as a CVS repository on
freefall.cdrom.com (except the foreign crypto code, for US legal
reasons). This includes the kernel and the system utilities. (Plus
the add-on `packages', a collection of ported software from various
sources in the Internet. It's no direct part of the system, but
maintained similarly.)
o Technical discussions about the development are held on several
mailing list, with freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org being the most
general one. If you wanna know more about the various lists and
their topics, write to majordomo@freebsd.org with a line saying just
`help' in the body of the mail.
o There are currently ~ 50 people from all over the world who have
privileges to directly manipulate the CVS tree. Those people are
held responsible for their doing, i.e. if anybody of those folks did
break something when commiting new code or bug fixes, he'll have to
fix his breakage. Those who don't have commit privilege are free to
contribute code, but this will have to be passed through somebody
with priv's, and the _latter_ one being responsible for it. (This
usually happens via one of the mailing lists.)
o There's a protocol to report problems and bug fixes back (those who
are email-connected to the Internet are encouraged to do it directly
with the send-pr program). The reports are collected in a database
and are being tracked, including automatically reporting status
changes back to the user who has submitted the report. (Quality
control.)
o There's a protocol to finalize new releases of the system. It
basically consists of one or more (but very few) people as the
`release engineer(s)', who control the final development steps of a
release. Releases normally undergo alpha and beta cycles. (Quality
assurance.)
o There's an ability to run the `latest and greatest' bits of the
system, called ``-current''. It can be obtained via two different
transport protocols (SUP and CTM), even through email if desired.
This is basically intented as a development basis for people who are
interested in participating in the development (including testing),
it is *not* intented for people who wish to run a stable system.
They are better served by running a release.
I hope i didn't forget anything.
--
cheers, J"org private: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de
http://www.sax.de/~joerg/
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)