---
title: "FreeBSD 6.4 Release Process"
sidenav: download
---

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  <h1>Introduction</h1>

  <p>This is a specific schedule for the release of FreeBSD 6.4.  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/handbook/freebsd-glossary.html#mfc-glossary" 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">--</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">22&nbsp;August&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Release Engineers send announcement email to
	developers with a rough schedule for the FreeBSD
	6.4 release.</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Announce the Ports Freeze</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">--</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">22&nbsp;August&nbsp;2008</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">29&nbsp;August&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">After this date, all commits to HEAD 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">--</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">8&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">8&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</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">8&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">8&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</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">15&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">16&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Version number bumps for <tt>doc/</tt> subtree.
	<tt>RELEASE_6_4_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">1&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Begin BETA1 builds.</td>
    </tr>


    <tr>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RELENG_6_4</tt> branch</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">6&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2&nbsp;October&nbsp;2008</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">8&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5&nbsp;October&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Begin RC1 builds.</td>
    </tr>




    <tr>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Ports tree tagged</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">22&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RELEASE_6_4_0</tt> tag for <tt>ports/</tt>.</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Ports tree unfrozen</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">22&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</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 6.4-RELEASE.</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Final package build starts</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">22&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</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>RC2</tt> builds</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">22&nbsp;September&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2&nbsp;November&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Begin RC2 builds.</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RELEASE</tt> builds</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">12&nbsp;November&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">26&nbsp;November&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"><strike>6&nbsp;October&nbsp;2008</strike></td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">28&nbsp;November&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">12&nbsp;December&nbsp;2008</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">RELENG_6_4 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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