On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 09:23:12PM -0400, Nikolai Lifanov wrote: > On 2015-07-24 17:27, Glen Barber wrote: > >On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 05:15:52PM -0400, Nikolai Lifanov wrote: > >>I noticed that in stable/10, /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf was switched from > >>using > >>latest package set to whichever one that is "quarterly" word is pointing > >>to > >>at the moment. What is the motivation for this change? > >> > > > >This was not done in the stable/10 branch, it was done in releng/10.2. > > > >>Quarterly package sets are useful if the end-user is able to pick which > >>one > >>to pull from and there is some amount of time of support overlap so that > >>the > >>user has time to validate the new package set and switch his systems to > >>it > >>(like what is done with pkgsrc). As-is, "quarterly" works just like > >>"latest" > >>from end-user perspective, but for most of the lifecycle packages are > >>outdated and there is a massive update bomb four times per year. > >> > >>Port branches are still valuable to those building their own packages, > >>since > >>they can support the previous (unsupported by the project) branch, > >>backporting fixes manually, while validating and upgrading to the new > >>one. > >>But, what is the value of the quarterly package set as-is and what is > >>the > >>value of switching to this set by default? > >> > > > >In general, the quarterly package set is less prone to having build > >failures, since the changes in the branch are (by intent) less > >intrusive, while still receiving security updates. It is analogous to > >the stable or releng branches in src, and how they compare to head. > > > >(This will be noted in the final 10.2-RELEASE announcement, as well as > >the release notes, and will also include instructions on how to switch > >to the 'latest' branch if that is what is desired.) > > > >Glen > > Cool, thanks for the explanation! >
You're welcome. (The 'quarterly' branch is admittedly under-documented,
which is a problem.)
> What would be really amazing to see are quarterly branches that the end user
> can switch between, like pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/2015Q3 ->
> pkg.freebsd.org/${ABI}/2015Q4 when he is ready, with at least a little bit
> of overlap.
>
I agree this would be a "nice to see" feature, but as I have insight
into how the pkg(8) mirrors operate, this is an unfortunately
non-trivial thing to implement.
Glen
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