The FreeBSD 8.0 release engineering wiki page. It helps track the status of the FreeBSD 8.0 release process, including schedule, branching condition, change request queues, TODO lists, known issues, and more. It is updated daily during the release process.
Although the dates have been entered, much of the site has not been updated to reflect that FreeBSD 8.0 BETA4 has been released. It does give a good outline of what still needs to be done before the final release later this month. Worth noting are the various lists of items that are being worked on. For example there is a list of items that are in progress and being researched as well as a cross referenced project list. The latter demonstrates the depths of organization that the engineering crew have gone to.
The following is an excerpt of the Being-Fixed and Still Being-Researched list;
- Boot-time hang with the CISS driver on HP DL380 G6 hardware (ScottLong) (being researched)
- FreeBSD 8.0R release engineering web page (RobertWatson) (awaiting beta3)
- Watch for potential TCP ABC issues during release cycle (LawrenceStewart) (in progress)
- bin/137640: segmentation fault in /bin/sh (Jilles Tjoelker) (in progress)
- No ARP statistics causing debugging problems for new llentry code (GeorgeNevilleNeil) (in progress)
- ia64 panic: vm_phys_paddr_to_vm_page (MarcelMoolenaar) (in progress)
- IPv6 regression on 8.x (QingLi) (in progress)
- Full tools/regression suite has not yet been run (NO OWNER)
- Performance regression tests have not been run post-beta cycle (NO OWNER)
New and old users of FreeBSD should take a moment to read through the page. I know I for one am always awestruck by the detail and complexity necessary to actually build our beloved operating system. It is a testament to the dedication of the engineering team that all of the t’s get crossed and the i’s get dotted. Were it not for such a group of volunteers these major releases would never see the light of day.
About the only thing missing from the page is a detailed account of the amount of hours these developers have given to complete their projects. Remember many of these people have donated their spare time to this developing this project, and let’s not forget the beta testers of faithfully test the release ISOs and complete their problem reports. Without this cycle of dedicated individuals there would be not new FreeBSD. We would live in a Windows, Mac OS X and Linux world. Honestly who wants that…;-0!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mikel King (http://twitter.com/mikelking) has been working in the Information Services field for over 20 years. He is currently the CEO of Olivent Technologies(http://olivent.com), a professional creative services partnership in NY. Additionally he is currently serving as the Secretary of the BSD Certification group as well as a Senior Editor for BSD News Network.
