THE FREEBSD CURRENT POLICY Last updated: $Date: 1994/05/07 11:39:26 $ This document attempts to explain the rationale behind FreeBSD-current, what you should expect should you decide to run it, and states some prerequisites for making sure the process goes as smoothly as possible. 1. What is FreeBSD-current? FreeBSD-current is, quite literally, nothing more than a daily snapshot of the working sources for FreeBSD. These include work in progress, experimental changes, and transitional mechanisms that may or may not be present in the next official release of the software. While many of us compile almost daily from FreeBSD-current sources, there are periods of time when the sources are literally uncompilable. These problems are generally resolved as expeditiously as possible, but whether or not FreeBSD-current sources bring disaster or greatly desired functionality can literally be a matter of which part of any given 24 hour period you grabbed them in! Please read on.. Under certain circumstances we will sometimes make binaries for parts of FreeBSD-current available, but only because we're interested in getting something tested, not because we're in the business of providing binary releases of current. If we don't offer, please don't ask! It takes far too much time to do this as a general task. 2. Who needs FreeBSD-current? FreeBSD-current is made generally available for 3 primary interest groups: 1. Members of the FreeBSD group who are actively working on one part or another of the source tree and for whom keeping `current' is an absolute requirement. 2. Members of the FreeBSD group who are active ALPHA/BETA testers and willing to spend time working through problems in order to ensure that FreeBSD-current remains as sane as possible. These are also people who wish to make topical suggestions on changes and the general direction of FreeBSD. 3. Peripheral members of the FreeBSD (or some other) group who merely wish to keep an eye on things and use the current sources for reference purposes (e.g. for *reading*, not running). These people also make the occasional comment or contribute code. 3. What is FreeBSD-current _NOT_? 1. A fast-track to getting pre-release bits because there's something you heard was pretty cool in there and you want to be the first on your block to have it. 2. A quick way of getting bug fixes. 3. In any way "officially supported" by us. We do our best to help people genuinely in one of the 3 "legitimate" FreeBSD-current catagories, but we simply DO NOT HAVE THE TIME to help every person who jumps into FreeBSD-current with more enthusiasm than knowledge of how to deal with experimental system software. This is not because we're mean and nasty people who don't like helping people out (we wouldn't even be doing FreeBSD if we were), it's literally because we can't answer 400 messages a day AND actually work on FreeBSD! I'm sure if given the choice between having us answer lots of questions or continue to improve FreeBSD, most of you would vote for us improving it (and so would we! :-). 4. Ok. I still think I "qualify" for FreeBSD-current, so what do I do? 1. Join the freebsd-hackers and freebsd-commit mailing lists. This is not just a good idea, it's ESSENTIAL. If you aren't on freebsd-hackers, you won't read the comments that people are making about the current state of the system and thus will end up stumbling over a lot of problems that others have already found and solved. Even more importantly, you will miss out on potentially critical information (e.g. "Yo, Everybody! Before you rebuild /usr/src, you MUST rebuild the kernel or your system will crash horribly!"). The freebsd-commit list will allow you to see the commit log entry for each change as its made. This can also contain important information, and will let you know what parts of the system are being actively changed. To join these lists, send mail to `majordomo@freefall.cdrom.com' and say: subscribe freebsd-hackers subscribe freebsd-commit In the body of your message. Optionally, you can also say `help' and MajorDomo will send you full help on how to subscribe and unsubscribe to the various other mailing lists we support. 2. Grab the sources from freebsd.cdrom.com. You can do this in two ways: 1. Use the CMU `sup' program (Software Update Protocol). This is the most recommended method, since it allows you to grab the entire collection once and then only what's changed from then on. Many people run sup from cron and keep their sources up-to-date automatically. To get a binary of the sup program for FreeBSD, as well as the documentation and some sample configuration files, look in: freefall.cdrom.com:~ftp/pub/sup 2. Use ftp. The source tree for FreeBSD-current is always "exported" on: freebsd.cdrom.com:~ftp/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-current We use `wu-ftpd' which allows compressed/tar'd grabbing of whole trees. e.g. you see: usr.bin/lex You can do: ftp> cd usr.bin ftp> get lex.tar.Z And it will get the whole directory for you as a compressed tar file. 3. If you're grabbing the sources to run, and not just look at, then grab ALL of current, not just selected portions. The reason for this is that various parts of the source depend on updates elsewhere and trying to compile just a subset is almost guaranteed to get you into trouble. 4. Before compiling current, read the Makefile in /usr/src carefully. You'll see one-time targets like `bootstrapld' which *MUST* be run as part of the upgrading process. Reading freebsd-hackers will keep you up-to-date on other bootstrapping procedures that sometimes become necessary as we move towards the next release. 5. Be active! If you're running FreeBSD-current, we want to know what you have to say about it, especially if you have suggestions for enhancements or bug fixes. Suggestions with accompanying code are received most enthusiastically! :-) Thank you for taking the time to read this all the way through. We're always very keen to remain "open" and share the fruits of our labor with the widest possible audience, but sharing development sources has always had certain pitfalls associated with it (which is why most commercial organizations won't even consider it) and I want to make sure that people at least come into this with their eyes open, and don't make the leap unless they're good at working without a net! Jordan