2.4.0-RC multiple builds?

[johnpoz]

Seems that the RC is more of a snapshot build?

Normally a RC is locked are they not? From this wording in the announcement
"This release candidate is representative of the final release, and barring any show-stopping problems, will be nearly identical to the final 2.4.0 release."

So why are we seeing snapshots that change in size every build?  Once you announce RC, shouldn't the snaps stop changing unless you go to RC1, RC2, etc..

pfSense-CE-2.4.0-RC-amd64-20170823-0547.iso.gz    23-Aug-2017 11:04          307690774
pfSense-CE-2.4.0-RC-amd64-20170823-1531.iso.gz    23-Aug-2017 20:48          306448876

pfSense-CE-2.4.0-RC-amd64-20170824-0752.iso.gz    24-Aug-2017 13:08          306865936
pfSense-CE-2.4.0-RC-amd64-20170824-1653.iso.gz    24-Aug-2017 22:08          307799099

pfSense-CE-2.4.0-RC-amd64-20170825-1840.iso.gz    25-Aug-2017 23:55          307379660

https://snapshots.pfsense.org/amd64/pfSense_RELENG_2_4_0/installer/

[phil.davis]

In the past, the project has simply renamed the "release" from DEVELOPMENT to BETA to RC and continued doing regular builds from the head of the relevant branch. I expect that this is still the practice.

I too find it rather odd. "development" I would expect to be some regularly updated build of the latest stuff. "beta", maybe. But on every other project that I am familiar with, by the time it gets to RC there will be a fixed build, called something like 2.4.0-RC1 and that stays exactly that way. Every week or so, when there are relevant changes ready, then build 2.4.0-RC2… By doing that, users know exactly what code they have, and it is also easy to make a short "release notes" between RC1, RC2, RC3... so people can see the (hopefully small and good) things that happened.

[johnpoz]

Exactly!! ;)  I don't recall previous iterations. Been a while since I was running beta code of pfsense that changed to RC, etc.

But yeah normally once RC hit, no other changes happen unless RC is actually changed to RC1, RC2, etc.

[jimp]

Once upon a time we used to release discrete images for RC1, RC2, RC3, and so on with snapshots in between that were not actually labeled RCx. That was a ton of maintenance and confusion for very little benefit. So now we treat the RC label on snapshots as the next evolution after BETA. The odds are higher that any given user will end up with a more stable image and a better experience. The primary downside is that for bugs in RC the specific reporting conditions are still a moving target and thus may be a little more difficult to reproduce. It's not so bad that it's worth the tradeoff though, at least thus far.

The -DEVELOPMENT bit is something we tack onto minor point release snapshots x.y.z-DEVELOPMENT (where z>0) to avoid having to label those as alpha/beta/etc when they are not usually worthy of that kind of distinction, since they are relatively limited in scope and changes.

[johnpoz]

Thanks JimP!  That answers my question completely.