---
title: "FreeBSD 6.3 Release Process"
sidenav: download
---

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<h1>Introduction</h1>

<p>This is a specific schedule for the release of FreeBSD 6.3.  For
  more general information about the release engineering process,
  please see the <a href="../../../releng/index.html" shape="rect">Release
  Engineering</a> section of the web site.</p>

<p>General discussions about the release engineering process or
  quality assurance issues should be sent to the public <a href="mailto:FreeBSD-qa@FreeBSD.org" shape="rect">freebsd-qa</a> mailing list.
  <a href="../../../doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#DEFINE-MFC" shape="rect">MFC</a>
  requests should be sent to <a href="mailto:re@FreeBSD.org" shape="rect">re@FreeBSD.org</a>.</p>

<h1>Schedule</h1>

<table class="tblbasic">
  <tr class="heading">
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Action</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Expected</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Actual</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Description</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Reminder announcement</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">TBD</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15&nbsp;Oct&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Release Engineers send announcement email to
      developers with a rough schedule for the FreeBSD
      6.3 release.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Announce the Ports Freeze</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">23&nbsp;Oct&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">23&nbsp;Oct&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Someone from <tt>portmgr@</tt> should email
    <tt>freebsd-ports@</tt> to set a date
    for the week long ports freeze and tagging of the ports tree.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Code freeze begins</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">18&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">18&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">After this date, all commits to RELENG_6 must be approved by <a href="mailto:re@FreeBSD.org" shape="rect">re@FreeBSD.org</a>.  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 <tt>stable@</tt>
      and <tt>qa@</tt> lists.</td>
  </tr>


  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Announce <tt>doc/</tt> tree slush</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">TBD</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">19&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Notification of the impending <tt>doc/</tt> tree slush should
      be sent to <tt>doc@</tt>.</td>
  </tr>


  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Ports tree frozen</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">30&nbsp;Oct&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">30&nbsp;Oct&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Only approved commits will be permitted to the <tt>ports/</tt>
      tree during the freeze.</td>
  </tr>


  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>doc/</tt> tree slush</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">25&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">25&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Non-essential commits to the <tt>en_US.ISO8859-1/</tt> subtree
      should be delayed from this point until after the <tt>doc/</tt>
      tree tagging, to give translation teams time to synchronize
      their work.</td>
  </tr>


  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>doc/</tt> tree tagged.</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Version number bumps for <tt>doc/</tt> subtree.
      <tt>RELEASE_6_3_0</tt> tag for <tt>doc/</tt>.  <tt>doc/</tt>
      slush ends at this time.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>BETA1</tt> builds</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">24&nbsp;Oct&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Begin BETA1 builds.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>BETA2</tt> builds</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">7&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">9&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Begin BETA2 builds.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RELENG_6_3</tt> branch</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">21&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">25&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The new release branch is created. Update <tt>newvers.sh</tt>
      and <tt>release.ent</tt> on various branches involved.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RC1</tt> builds</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">21&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">26&nbsp;Nov&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Begin RC1 builds.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RC2</tt> builds</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">22&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Begin RC2 builds.</td>
  </tr>




  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Ports tree tagged</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">14&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">11&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RELEASE_6_3_0</tt> tag for <tt>ports/</tt>.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Ports tree unfrozen</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">14&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">11&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">After the <tt>ports/</tt> tree is tagged,
      the <tt>ports/</tt> tree will be re-opened for commits, but
      commits made after tagging will not go in 6.3-RELEASE.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Final package build starts</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">14&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">12&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The ports cluster and
      <a href="http://pointyhat.FreeBSD.org" shape="rect">pointyhat</a>
      build final packages.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RELEASE</tt> builds</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">19&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15&nbsp;Jan&nbsp;2008</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Begin RELEASE builds.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Announcement</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">23&nbsp;Dec&nbsp;2007</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">18&nbsp;Jan&nbsp;2008</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Announcement sent out after a majority of the mirrors have
      received the bits.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Turn over to the secteam</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">TBD</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">28&nbsp;Jan&nbsp;2008</td>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">RELENG_6_3 branch is handed over to
      the FreeBSD Security Officer Team in one or two weeks after the
      announcement.</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<h1>Additional Information</h1>

<ul>
  <li><a href="../../../releng/index.html" shape="rect">FreeBSD Release Engineering website.</a></li>
</ul>


  </div>
          <br class="clearboth" />
        </div>
        
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