FreeBSD 3.5.1-RELEASE Now Available

Cabal writes: "FreeBSD 3.5.1-RELEASE is now available for the x86 and alpha architectures. There have been a few important changes in both the kernel and userland, plus several security fixes were included. Most important is the inclusion of the new kerberos security updates. 3.5.1 is the continuation and most likely final release of the 3.x branch. New development continues on 5.x. The release notes have the full details on what's changed, you can download 3.5.1 from here or the i386 ISO image from here." But why no CVS tag? Read on for the explanation. . .

In this message to the -announce mailing list, Jordan wrote: CVS TAGS: Because of the relatively minor nature of this point release, it was done quietly and without much in the way of fanfare or even a tag. Tags are very expensive in CVS (they shouldn't be, but they are) and one was deemed unworth the overhead in this case. Anyone trying to reproduce 3.5.1 should simply build with the RELENG_3 tag given that changes to that branch have been extremely light since the re-roll and will produce results identical enough as not to matter. If you really must put your rifle sights over that exact part of the source tree, use -D "July 21, 2000" for your check-out.

Comments

Glad at least SOMEONE pays attention

[Daeron]

I posted this Exact some Anouncement Twice and it got Rejected BOTH times .....

What version to support ?

[Oestergaard]

If one where building commercial software for FreeBSD, which version should be supported ?

It would be nice to support only one version, or at least build for one version and maybe run on more. Probably the newest version (4.1) isn't the good choice, because too few have migrated to that one yet, but would it be backwards compatible ?

What about forward compatibility ? A product build on 3.5, would it run on 4.1 ?

It's hard to find info about this on the web, so I'm asking the question here in the hope that someone in the know could let me know :)

Re:What version to support ?

[mr]

>If one where building commercial software for FreeBSD, which version should be supported ?

With a BSD licence, you don't even NEED to 'support BSD', you could take 2.2.8, 3.5.1, 4.X, or even 5.x and slap your own label on it. And tell the customers that 'we offically support our version of the OS that shipped on the CD.'

You can even lock up the whole app and box if you'd like. BSD is *almost* a gift, with the only gift software being Public Domain.

Another option in the 'one binary fits all' goal is to make a linux-centric binary and be sure it runs on the BSD compatiblily mode.

>A product build on 3.5, would it run on 4.1 ?

It should. There is an option to run 1.X and 2.x binaries on 3.X. 3.X compatibiliy at this time should cover most people. A 2.X version would cover the people who say 'if it ain't broke, don't pgrade it', or want to keep the 1000+ days of uptime going.

>It's hard to find info about this on the web
www.freebsd.org

Finally...

[Mark A. Rhowe]

Under 1.3. USERLAND CHANGES:
Thread locking functions added to dynamic linker

Every time we patched with the latest release, we had to hack back in our custom thread locking functions. After submitting our code over 5 times we can finally use the stock dynamic linker.

Re:Finally...

[Ded Bob]

Which functions were these?

ISO images now available

[bconway]

You can get them at the link above. Enjoy.