FreeBSD 5.2 Release Process

Introduction

This is a specific schedule for the release of FreeBSD 5.2. For more general information about the release engineering process, please see the Release Engineering section of the web site.

General discussions about the release engineering process or quality assurance issues should be sent to the public FreeBSD-qa mailing list. MFC requests should be sent to re@FreeBSD.org.

FreeBSD 5.2 will continue to be released from the 5-CURRENT development stream. For more details about the milestones for reaching 5-STABLE, see the 5-STABLE Roadmap page.

The current release engineering TODO list is also available. This list is updated periodically through the release cycle.

Schedule

Action	Expected	Actual	Description
src/ tree frozen	17 Nov 2003	18 Nov 2003	Announce the src/ code freeze for 5.2 on the HEAD branch. Commits to HEAD require re@FreeBSD.org approval.
ports/ tree frozen	17 Nov 2003	19 Nov 2003	Announce the ports/ code freeze for 5.2. Commits to ports/ require portmgr@FreeBSD.org approval.
Begin 5.2-BETA builds	17 Nov 2003	24 Nov 2003	Begin building 5.2-BETA disc1 and disc2 for all Tier-1 platforms.
Release 5.2-BETA	19 Nov 2003	26 Nov 2003	5.2-BETA tier-1 platform images released and uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
RELENG_5_2 branched	1 Dec 2003	6 Dec 2003	Branch of src/ from HEAD for the release. Note: no branch for RELENG_5 will happen at this time.
Turn off debugging for RELENG_5_2	1 Dec 2003	6 Dec 2003	Turn off WITNESS, INVARIANTS, and malloc debugging options similar to what was done for 5.1.
Begin 5.2-RC1 builds	1 Dec 2003	7 Dec 2003	Begin building 5.2-RC1 disc1 and disc2 for all Tier-1 platforms.
src/ unfrozen	1 Dec 2003	6 Dec 2003	Unfreeze HEAD src. Continue to coordinate significant check-ins with re@FreeBSD.org in order to work towards 5-STABLE.
Release 5.2-RC1	3 Dec 2003	10 Dec 2003	5.2-RC1 tier-1 platform images released and uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
Ports tree tagged	3 Dec 2003	3 Dec 2003	Tentative date of RELEASE_5_2_0 tag for ports.
doc/ tree slush	8 Dec 2003	9 Dec 2003	Announce the doc/ slush for 5.2. From this time until the tagging of the doc/ tree, non-critical changes should be postponed to allow translation teams time to finish their work for the release.
Begin 5.2-RC2 builds	19 Dec 2003	21 Dec 2003	Begin building 5.2-RC2 disc1 and disc2 for all Tier-1 platforms.
Release 5.2-RC2	21 Dec 2003	23 Dec 2003	5.2-RC2 tier-1 platform images released and uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
doc/ tree tagged	12 Dec 2003	12 Dec 2003	Tag the doc/ tree with RELEASE_5_2_0.
Version numbers bumped	Jan 2004	Jan 11 2004	The files listed here are updated to reflect FreeBSD 5.2.
src/ tree tagged	Jan 2004	Jan 11 2004	Tag the RELENG_5_2 branch with RELENG_5_2_0_RELEASE.
Begin 5.2-RELEASE builds	Jan 2004	Jan 11 2004	Start 5.2-RELEASE Tier-1 builds.
Warn mirror-announce@FreeBSD.org	Jan 2004	Jan 11 2004	Heads up email to mirror-announce@FreeBSD.org to give admins time to prepare for the load spike to come. The site administrators have frequently requested advance notice for new ISOs.
Upload to ftp-master	Jan 2004	Jan 11 2004	Release and packages uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
FreeBSD 5.2 Announced	Jan 2004	Jan 12 2004	FreeBSD 5.2 is announced to the mailing lists.
FreeBSD 5.2 Press Release	Jan 2004	Jan 12 2004	A formal press release statement is in the works and should be released at this time to the www.FreeBSD.org website and various tech publications.

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