FreeBSD 6.2 Release Process

Introduction

This is a specific schedule for the release of FreeBSD 6.2. 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.

Schedule

Action	Expected	Actual	Description
Reminder announcement	8 September 2006	8 September 2006	Release Engineers send announcement email to developers with a rough schedule for the FreeBSD 6.2 release.
Code freeze begins	10 September 2006	10 September 2006	After this date, all commits to RELENG_6 must be approved by re@FreeBSD.org. Certain highly active documentation committers are exempt from this rule for routine man page / release note updates. Heads-up emails should be sent to the developers, as well as stable@ and qa@ lists.
Announce the Ports Freeze	17 September 2006	17 September 2006	portmgr@ sends email to freebsd-ports@ to announce the dates for the week long ports freeze and tagging of the ports tree.
Begin 6.2-BETA1 builds	16 September 2006	16 September 2006	Begin building the first public test release build for all Tier-1 platforms.
Release 6.2-BETA1	17 September 2006	20 September 2006	6.2-BETA1 Tier-1 platform images built, released, and uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
Begin 6.2-BETA2 builds	30 September 2006	1 October 2006	Begin building the second public test release build for all Tier-1 platforms.
Release 6.2-BETA2	1 October 2006	5 October 2006	6.2-BETA2 Tier-1 platform images built, released, and uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
Ports tree frozen	10 October 2006	10 October 2006	Only approved commits will be permitted to the ports/ tree during the freeze.
Begin 6.2-BETA3 builds	30 October 2006	30 October 2006	Begin building the third public test release build for all Tier-1 platforms.
Release 6.2-BETA3	1 November 2006	31 October 2006	6.2-BETA3 Tier-1 platform images built, released, and uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
RELENG_6_2 branch	12 October 2006	15 November 2006	The release branch is created. Update newvers.sh and release.ent on various branches involved.
src/ unfrozen	14 October 2006	18 November 2006	Unfreeze RELENG_6 src. Continue to coordinate significant check-ins with re@FreeBSD.org until the release is final.
Build 6.2-RC1	14 October 2006	15 November 2006	Begin building the first release candidate build for all Tier-1 platforms.
Release 6.2-RC1	15 October 2006	17 November 2006	6.2-RC1 Tier-1 platform images released and uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
Ports tree tagged	24 October 2006	30 October 2006	RELEASE_6_2_0 tag for ports/.
Ports tree slush	24 October 2006	30 October 2006	After the ports/ tree is tagged, the ports/ tree will be re-opened for commits, but commits made after tagging will not go in 6.2-RELEASE. Also, wide sweeping commits are only allowed after explicit approval from portmgr@. The ports tree will be fully unfrozen after the release announcement.
Final package build starts	24 October 2006	20 November 2006	The ports cluster and pointyhat build final packages.
Announce doc/ tree slush	8 October 2006	--	Notification of the impending doc/ tree slush should be sent to doc@.
doc/ tree slush	23 October 2006	--	Non-essential commits to the en_US.ISO8859-1/ subtree should be delayed from this point until after the doc/ tree tagging, to give translation teams time to synchronize their work.
Build 6.2-RC2	28 October 2006 25 November 2006	24 December 2006	Begin building the second release candidate build for all Tier-1 platforms.
Release 6.2-RC2	29 October 2006 27 November 2006	27 December 2006	6.2-RC2 Tier-1 platform images released and uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
doc/ tree tagged.	29 October 2006	8 December 2006	Version number bumps for doc/ subtree. RELEASE_6_2_0 tag for doc/. doc/ slush ends at this time.
Version numbers bumped	9 November 2006 8 January 2007	11 January 2007	The files listed here are updated to reflect FreeBSD 6.2.
src/ tree tagged	9 November 2006 8 January 2007	11 January 2007	Tag the RELENG_6_2 branch with RELENG_6_2_0_RELEASE.
Begin 6.2-RELEASE builds	9 November 2006 8 January 2007	11 January 2007	Start 6.2-RELEASE Tier-1 builds.
Warn mirror-announce@FreeBSD.org	9 November 2006 8 January 2007	--	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	10 November 2006 8 January 2007	13 January 2007	Release and packages uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.
Announcement	13 November 2006 10 January 2007	15 January 2007	Announcement sent out after a majority of the mirrors have received the bits.
Turn over to so@	TBD	22 January 2007	Control of the RELENG_6_2 branch is handed over to the FreeBSD Security Officer Team one or two weeks after the announcement.

Additional Information

• FreeBSD 6.2 developer todo list.
• FreeBSD 6.2 Code Freeze Commit Approval List.
• FreeBSD Release Engineering website.

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