freebsd stable - Sep 2008 - proposed change to support policy for FreeBSD Releases

Some quite lively offline discussion has come to conclusion with the  
following suggestions to change the support policy.  Obviously, this  
is what we feel would be a good idea, but it's obviously open to  
discussion and there's nobody demanding anything here.  It just seems  
"better".

Old text:
> Each branch is supported by the Security Officer for a limited time  
> only, and is designated as one of `Early adopter', `Normal', or  
> `Extended'. The designation is used as a guideline for determining  
> the lifetime of the branch as follows.
>
> Early adopter
>     Releases which are published from the -CURRENT branch will be  
> supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 6 months after  
> the release.
> Normal
>     Releases which are published from a -STABLE branch will be  
> supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 12 months after  
> the release.
> Extended
>     Selected releases will be supported by the Security Officer for  
> a minimum of 24 months after the release.
Proposed (starting point for discussion for) new text:

Each branch is supported by the Security Officer for a limited time  
only, and is designated as one of `Early adopter', `Normal', or  
'Final'. The designation is used as a guideline for determining the  
lifetime of the branch as follows.

Early adopter
     Releases which are published from the -CURRENT branch will be  
supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 6 months after the  
release.


Normal
     Releases which are published from a -STABLE branch will be  
supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 12 months after the  
release.
     A release which is not the final minor release of a branch will  
be additionally supported by a minimum of 6 months past the release  
date of the succeeding version.  For example X.1 will be supported for  
12 months or until 6 months past the release date of X.2, whichever  
comes later.

Final
     The final minor release on a given branch will be supported by  
the Security Officer for a minimum of 24 months after the release.


OBSERVATIONS:

1. This avoids the need for the well-documented chicken-and-egg  
problem of trying to guess which release is the final release.

2. This is a consistent policy in line with many other vendor policies.

3. This rewards forward movement in the branch.

And finally, as I've done the match carefully,

4.  It would appear to *reduce* rather than enlarge the support  
requirements for the security team.  Unless a minor release comes out  
less than 6 months after a previous release, only two versions would  
ever be supported at the same time.  In recent history 3 minor  
releases in the same branch have been supported more often than not.

Example under current policy:

6.5 comes out in July of 2009.   For July -> October the security team  
will need to support 3 releases: 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5.   From November  
2009 through January 2010 the security team will need to support 6.3  
and 6.5, but not 6.4.

Revised under the existing policy:

Support for 6.3 expires in April of 2009.  (more than 12 months past  
release and 6 months after the release of 6.4).  Support for 6.4  
expires in January of 2010.  Support for 6.5 would expire in July of  
2011 or 6 months after the release of 6.6.

^NOTE: this example is probably unfeasible since 6.3 already has a  
published support period ended in January 2010, but this will prevent  
a similar occurrence happening in future releases.

Note2: This new policy would not change the support period for 6.4 if  
it is the final release, but it does completely resolve the need to  
"guess" whether or not it will be the final release.

The notable change that I believe will encourage business  
participation in the testing/evaluation process is that 6.4 is  
guaranteed to be supported either 24 months, or at least 6 months past  
the release date of 6.5.   (recent history suggests this would be  
15-19 months).  This encourages businesses to test and evaluate 6.4  
NOW, rather than waiting until a decision about the support policy is  
made.

Repeat from the top: nobody is demanding anything.  I think this  
policy would make a lot more sense, and would promote forward  
movement.  Feel free to correct me if we overlooked anything.  Thanks.

-- 
Jo Rhett
Net Consonance : consonant endings by net philanthropy, open source  
and other randomness

freebsd-stable et al ...

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 01:37:03PM -0700, Jo Rhett
wrote:
> Some quite lively offline discussion has come to conclusion with the  
> following suggestions to change the support policy.  Obviously, this  
> is what we feel would be a good idea, but it's obviously open to  
> discussion and there's nobody demanding anything here.  It just seems  
> "better".
> 
> Old text:
> > Each branch is supported by the Security Officer for a limited time  
o/ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
O\  whole heap of content sniped for brevity.
> > a minimum of 24 months after the release.
> 
> Proposed (starting point for discussion for) new text:
> 
> Each branch is supported by the Security Officer for a limited time  
> only, and is designated as one of `Early adopter', `Normal', or  
> 'Final'. The designation is used as a guideline for determining the
> lifetime of the branch as follows.
> 
> Early adopter
>      Releases which are published from the -CURRENT branch will be  
for support of my hardware and any 'new' machines that might wander by
.. i like these two definitions, the clarity of teh time line

i mean, Early Adopter / Normal
> Normal
>      Releases which are published from a -STABLE branch will be  
but, in particular i like this (Final) as a place to find some
certainty and a place to plan the next step as regards freebsd upgrade
path and future hardware acquisitions .. a safe place to plan and look
froward from ...
> Final
>      The final minor release on a given branch will be supported by  
> the Security Officer for a minimum of 24 months after the release.
o/ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
O\  whole heap of contents sniped for brevity.

thank you gentle peoples for working out this solution. it has given me
some much needed clarity as regards forward moving planning.

as well as looking to very clearly simplify the desicion making process
as regards, not just, 'which freebsd to use' but when to move and what
release to move to. as well as helping with the going forward hardware
acquisions processes. not all gifts make good freebsd platforms.

it helps to know with some kind of certainty wht hardware is being
supported/worked on and still in pre-development stage so to speak.

at any rate a good place to start with as regards this whole 'support'
business .. makes sence to me .. thanks, gang.

keep up teh good work .. very much appreciated

most kind regards / appreciations.

jonathan

-- 
===============================================================powered by ..
QNX, OS9 and freeBSD  --  http://caamora com au/operating system
==== === appropriate solution in an inappropriate world === ====

Jo Rhett wrote:
> Some quite lively offline discussion has come to conclusion with the  
> following suggestions to change the support policy.  Obviously, this  is 
> what we feel would be a good idea, but it's obviously open to  
> discussion and there's nobody demanding anything here.  It just seems  
> "better".
[...snip...]
> 
> Note2: This new policy would not change the support period for 6.4 if  
> it is the final release, but it does completely resolve the need to  
> "guess" whether or not it will be the final release.
> 
> The notable change that I believe will encourage business  participation 
> in the testing/evaluation process is that 6.4 is  guaranteed to be 
> supported either 24 months, or at least 6 months past  the release date 
> of 6.5.   (recent history suggests this would be  15-19 months).  This 
> encourages businesses to test and evaluate 6.4  NOW, rather than waiting 
> until a decision about the support policy is  made.
> 
> Repeat from the top: nobody is demanding anything.  I think this  policy 
> would make a lot more sense, and would promote forward  movement.  Feel 
> free to correct me if we overlooked anything.  Thanks.
I read the whole thread about releases schedule and I second your 
proposed changes. It makes things clear to me and I'll be happy if this 
concept will be accepted by FreeBSD team.

Miroslav Lachman

On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 13:37 -0700, Jo Rhett wrote:
> Some quite lively offline discussion has come to conclusion with the  
> following suggestions to change the support policy.  Obviously, this  
> is what we feel would be a good idea, but it's obviously open to  
> discussion and there's nobody demanding anything here.  It just seems  
> "better".
> 
> Old text:
> > Each branch is supported by the Security Officer for a limited time  
> > only, and is designated as one of `Early adopter', `Normal',
or
> > `Extended'. The designation is used as a guideline for determining
> > the lifetime of the branch as follows.
> >
> > Early adopter
> >     Releases which are published from the -CURRENT branch will be  
> > supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 6 months after  
> > the release.
> > Normal
> >     Releases which are published from a -STABLE branch will be  
> > supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 12 months after  
> > the release.
> > Extended
> >     Selected releases will be supported by the Security Officer for  
> > a minimum of 24 months after the release.
> 
> Proposed (starting point for discussion for) new text:
> 
> Each branch is supported by the Security Officer for a limited time  
> only, and is designated as one of `Early adopter', `Normal', or  
> 'Final'. The designation is used as a guideline for determining the
> lifetime of the branch as follows.
> 
> Early adopter
>      Releases which are published from the -CURRENT branch will be  
> supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 6 months after the  
> release.
> 
> 
> Normal
>      Releases which are published from a -STABLE branch will be  
> supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 12 months after the  
> release.
>      A release which is not the final minor release of a branch will  
> be additionally supported by a minimum of 6 months past the release  
> date of the succeeding version.  For example X.1 will be supported for  
> 12 months or until 6 months past the release date of X.2, whichever  
> comes later.
> 
> Final
>      The final minor release on a given branch will be supported by  
> the Security Officer for a minimum of 24 months after the release.
> 
> 
> OBSERVATIONS:
> 
> 1. This avoids the need for the well-documented chicken-and-egg  
> problem of trying to guess which release is the final release.
> 
> 2. This is a consistent policy in line with many other vendor policies.
> 
> 3. This rewards forward movement in the branch.
> 
> And finally, as I've done the match carefully,
> 
> 4.  It would appear to *reduce* rather than enlarge the support  
> requirements for the security team.  Unless a minor release comes out  
> less than 6 months after a previous release, only two versions would  
> ever be supported at the same time.  In recent history 3 minor  
> releases in the same branch have been supported more often than not.
> 
> Example under current policy:
> 
> 6.5 comes out in July of 2009.   For July -> October the security team  
> will need to support 3 releases: 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5.   From November  
> 2009 through January 2010 the security team will need to support 6.3  
> and 6.5, but not 6.4.
> 
> Revised under the existing policy:
> 
> Support for 6.3 expires in April of 2009.  (more than 12 months past  
> release and 6 months after the release of 6.4).  Support for 6.4  
> expires in January of 2010.  Support for 6.5 would expire in July of  
> 2011 or 6 months after the release of 6.6.
> 
> ^NOTE: this example is probably unfeasible since 6.3 already has a  
> published support period ended in January 2010, but this will prevent  
> a similar occurrence happening in future releases.
> 
> Note2: This new policy would not change the support period for 6.4 if  
> it is the final release, but it does completely resolve the need to  
> "guess" whether or not it will be the final release.
> 
> The notable change that I believe will encourage business  
> participation in the testing/evaluation process is that 6.4 is  
> guaranteed to be supported either 24 months, or at least 6 months past  
> the release date of 6.5.   (recent history suggests this would be  
> 15-19 months).  This encourages businesses to test and evaluate 6.4  
> NOW, rather than waiting until a decision about the support policy is  
> made.
> 
> Repeat from the top: nobody is demanding anything.  I think this  
> policy would make a lot more sense, and would promote forward  
> movement.  Feel free to correct me if we overlooked anything.  Thanks.
> 
Isn't this a non-pragmatic way of looking at this? Currently, as long as
there are no serious issues with 6.4, 6.4 will be supported for 24
months from release.  This is abundantly clear from both prior history
and what secteam say. 
If there are serious issues, then 6.5 will be cut to address these
issues, and it would be a release to address these issues. In this case,
the 'only 12 month support' is irrelevant; one would want to migrate
these machines to 6.5. One might argue that this isn't something that
can be planned for by a user; I would argue that planning for
unexpected, serious problems is something that has to be done for every
deployed machine.

Extended support is great for point-1 releases, so we can acclimatise to
a new major branch with the benefit that no major functional changes
will jump in. To my mind, this entire discussion is bikeshed painting
that ends up with semantic arguing about what a 'final' release is.

Cheers

Tom
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Jo Rhett <jrhett@netconsonance.com> writes:
> Each branch is supported by the Security Officer for a limited time
> only, and is designated as one of `Early adopter', `Normal', or
> Final'. The designation is used as a guideline for determining the
> lifetime of the branch as follows.
I'm not clear on how this helps.  We don't know if there will be a
need to produce a 6.5 release, so there's no way to judge whether 6.4
should be designated "final" or not.  The only logical answer is to do
so, which leaves a substantial chance that there will end up being
more than one "final" release on the 6.x line.  That's not a
particularly desirable situation.

In fact, it's worse, because if 6.5 happens, it will probably be
because there were problems with 6.4 serious enough that we'd rather
people move to 6.5 anyway (at least for critical systems).

Be well.
        Lowell

On Sep 25, 2008, at 9:32 AM, Lowell Gilbert wrote:
> I'm not clear on how this helps.  We don't know if there will be a
> need to produce a 6.5 release, so there's no way to judge whether 6.4
> should be designated "final" or not.  The only logical answer is
to do
> so, which leaves a substantial chance that there will end up being
> more than one "final" release on the 6.x line.  That's not a
> particularly desirable situation.
>
> In fact, it's worse, because if 6.5 happens, it will probably be
> because there were problems with 6.4 serious enough that we'd rather
> people move to 6.5 anyway (at least for critical systems).

You are exactly right.  I am proposing that we stop trying to guess  
whether or not it is a final release.

A release will be supported until the next release + N months (N is  
currently being debated I guess) or 24 months if there is no followup  
release.

This effectively solves both of the problems you've very accurately  
named above.

-- 
Jo Rhett
Net Consonance : consonant endings by net philanthropy, open source  
and other randomness