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Start cleaning up the stable/current section.

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a) literally stop literally repeating certain words literally every
sentence.  Generally, this isn't generally useful and generally
becomes generally annoying very quickly, generally.

b) add specific examples of why -current is not what it isn't.

c) make it explicit that users of -current should be able to debug
many problems on their own.

d) smooth & tighten the language after the above changes.
This commit is contained in:
Michael Lucas 2002-03-21 18:05:31 +00:00
parent 6cbd2811ff
commit 604895c7a5
Notes: svn2git 2020-12-08 03:00:23 +00:00 
svn path=/head/; revision=12545
1 changed files with 38 additions and 29 deletions
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67
en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cutting-edge/chapter.sgml
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@ -90,32 +90,36 @@
<sect2 id="current">
<title>Staying Current with &os;</title>
<para>As you are reading this, keep in mind that &os.current; is the
<quote>bleeding edge</quote> of &os; development and that if you
are new to &os;, you are most likely going to want to think
twice about running it.</para>
<para>As you read this, keep in mind that &os.current; is the
<quote>bleeding edge</quote> of &os; development.
&os.current; users are expected
to have a high degree of technical skill, and should be capable
of solving difficult system problems on their own.
If you
are new to &os;, think
twice before installing it. </para>
<sect3>
<title>What Is &os.current;?</title>
<indexterm><primary>snapshot</primary></indexterm>
<para>&os.current; is, quite literally, nothing more than a
daily snapshot of the working sources for &os;. These
include work in progress, experimental changes and transitional
mechanisms that may or may not be present in the next official
release of the software. While many of us compile almost daily
from &os.current; sources, there are periods of time when the
sources are literally un-compilable. These problems are
generally resolved as expeditiously as possible, but whether or
not &os.current; sources bring disaster or greatly desired
functionality can literally be a matter of which part of any
given 24 hour period you grabbed them in!</para>
<para>&os.current; is the
latest working sources for &os;. This
includes work in progress, experimental changes, and transitional
mechanisms that might or might not be present in the next official
release of the software. While many &os; developers compile
the &os.current; source code daily, there are periods of time when the
sources are not buildable. These problems are
resolved as expeditiously as possible, but whether or
not &os.current; brings disaster or greatly desired
functionality can be a matter of which exact moment
you grabbed the source code in!</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Who Needs &os.current;?</title>
<para>&os.current; is made generally available for 3 primary
<para>&os.current; is made available for 3 primary
interest groups:</para>
<orderedlist>
@ -127,15 +131,16 @@
<listitem>
<para>Members of the &os; group who are active testers,
willing to spend time working through problems in order to
willing to spend time solving problems in order to
ensure that &os.current; remains as sane as possible.
These are also people who wish to make topical suggestions
on changes and the general direction of &os;.</para>
on changes and the general direction of &os;, and submit
patches to implement them.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Peripheral members of the &os; (or some other) group
who merely wish to keep an eye on things and use the current
<para>Those
who merely wish to keep an eye on things, or to use the current
sources for reference purposes (e.g. for
<emphasis>reading</emphasis>, not running). These people
also make the occasional comment or contribute code.</para>
@ -150,25 +155,29 @@
<listitem>
<para>A fast-track to getting pre-release bits because you
heard there is some cool new feature in there and you want
to be the first on your block to have it.</para>
to be the first on your block to have it. Being the first
on the block to get the new feature means that you're the
first on the block to get the new bugs.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A quick way of getting bug fixes.</para>
<para>A quick way of getting bug fixes. Any given version
of &os.current is just as likely to introduce new bugs
as to fix existing ones.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>In any way <quote>officially supported</quote> by us.
<para>In any way <quote>officially supported</quote>.
We do our best to help people genuinely in one of the 3
<quote>legitimate</quote> &os.current; categories, but we
<quote>legitimate</quote> &os.current; groups, but we
simply <emphasis>do not have the time</emphasis> to provide
tech support for it. This is not because we are mean and
tech support. This is not because we are mean and
nasty people who do not like helping people out (we would
not even be doing &os; if we were), it is literally
because we cannot answer 400 messages a day
<emphasis>and</emphasis> actually work on FreeBSD! Given the
not even be doing &os; if we were). We simply
cannot answer hundreds messages a day
<emphasis>and</emphasis> work on FreeBSD! Given the
choice between improving &os; and answering lots of
questions, most developers, and users, would probably opt for
questions on experimental code, the developers opt for
the former.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>