release-engineering branches (was Re: kernel panic in if_ppp.c)

On 4/15/2004 2:13 PM, Robert Watson wrote:
> Currently, this fix doesn't fit the charter for the RELENG_5_2 branch,
> which is focussed on security-only fixes.  However, there's an on-going
> discussion of broadening the scope of the current security branches to
> release-engineering branches.  If this happens, I'll merge it to that
> branch also (feel free to remind me if I forget :-).

This is a fabulous idea.  I know it means a little more work, but I can 
think of several situations where I had to manually patch a release 
branch (or run -STABLE or -CURRENT) because I needed a simple bugfix. 
Broadening the scope to make them release-engineering branches would 
have saved me from this extra work.  I think it increases the 
"durability" of releases, allowing people to more strictly use just 
releases.  As a person responsible for FreeBSD machines in production, I 
find this highly desirable.  I can see definite complications (like the 
MFC rules for the branch -- recent changes in commit permissions to 
require an "Approved by:" line should help, though), but my opinion is 
that this is worthwhile.

Jon Noack