---
title: "FreeBSD 5.0 Release Process"
sidenav: download
---

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<h1>Introduction</h1>

<p>This is a specific schedule for the release of FreeBSD 5.0.  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>

<p>One of the major new features of FreeBSD 5.0 will be completely
  re-worked SMP support.</p>

<p>The current release engineering <a href="../../../releases/5.0R/todo.html" shape="rect">TODO list</a> is also available.
  This list is updated periodically through the release cycle.</p>

<h1>Schedule</h1>

<table class="tblbasic">
  <tr><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"><tt>releng_5_dp1</tt> branch (Perforce)</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15 Mar
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15 Mar 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Branch created, commits require re@
      approval.  The branch will be used to allow us time to QA the
      release, synchronize the release notes with the translation
      teams, synchronize sysinstall and the package set, etc without
      disrupting the normal flow of development on <tt>-CURRENT</tt>.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Ports Freeze</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2 Apr
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2 Apr 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The ports tree is frozen and tagged for
      the developer preview.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Final i386 package build completes</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3 Apr
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">4 Apr 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The final package build for the
      i386 architecture is complete.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Final Alpha package build completes</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3 Apr
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5 Apr 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The final package build for the
      Alpha architecture is complete.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Final sparc64 package build completes</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3 Apr
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">7 Apr 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The final package build for the
      sparc64 architecture is complete.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Package Split</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3 Apr
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">7 Apr 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The packages for the installation CDROM
      are selected from the results of the final package build.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">FreeBSD 5.0 Developer Preview 1</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5 Apr
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">8 Apr 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">A full release for the i386, Alpha, and
      sparc64 architectures.  The i386 and Alpha releases at least
      will contain a full package set and a disc1 ISO image will be
      made available.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">5.0 Feature List finalized</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">16 Jun
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">--</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">At the FreeBSD Developer Summit at
      Usenix, we will need to finalize the list of features that will
      be included with FreeBSD 5.0.  Some features will just have to
      wait for 5.1 to give us ample time to QA the many features that
      are ready.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RELENG_5_0_DP2</tt> branch</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">17 Jul
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">17 Aug 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Branch created in Perforce, commits require re@
      approval.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">FreeBSD 5.0 Developer Preview 2</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">25 Jul
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">18 Nov 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">A full release for the i386, Alpha, and
      sparc64 architectures.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>-CURRENT</tt> feature freeze</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1 Oct
    2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">16 Oct 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">After this date, significant new features
    should be discussed with <tt>re@</tt> before consideration for
    5.0-RELEASE.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>-CURRENT</tt> code freeze</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">20 Oct
      2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">18 Nov 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The code freeze for 5.0.  Commits to
      HEAD require re@ approval.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">First release candidate</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">2 Dec 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">9 Dec 2002</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">x86, alpha, sparc64, and ia64 images released and uploaded to
      ftp-master.FreeBSD.org.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1"><tt>RELENG_5_0</tt> branched</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">12 Dec 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">12 Dec 2002</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Branch from <tt>HEAD</tt> for the release.  Note: no branch for
      <tt>RELENG_5</tt> will happen a this time.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">src unfrozen</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">12 Dec 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">12 Dec 2002</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Unfreeze <tt>HEAD</tt> src. Continue to coordinate significant
      check-ins with re@FreeBSD.org in order to work towards
      <tt>5-STABLE</tt>.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Second release candidate</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">17 Dec 2002</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">21 Dec 2002</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">--</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Ports tree tagged</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">3 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">1 Jan 2003</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Tentative date of <tt>RELEASE_5_0_0</tt> tag for ports.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Start RC3 builds</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">7 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">9 Jan 2003</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Set timestamp and start i386, pc98, sparc64, alpha, and ia64
      builds.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Third release candidate released</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">10 Jan 2003</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">12 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">--</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Version numbers bumped</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15 Jan 2003</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">The files listed <a href="../../../doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/article.html#VERSIONBUMP" shape="rect">here</a>
        are updated to reflect FreeBSD 5.0.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">src tree tagged</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">16 Jan 2003</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Tag the RELENG_5_0 branch with RELENG_5_0_0_RELEASE</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">doc tree tagged</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15 Jan 2003</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Tag the doc/ branch with RELEASE_5_0_0</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Final builds</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">16 Jan 2003</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Start x86, alpha, sparc64, ia64, and pc98 builds.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Warn hubs@FreeBSD.org</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">15 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">17 Jan 2003</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Heads up email to hubs@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.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
     <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Upload to <tt>ftp-master</tt></td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">17 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">17 Jan 2003</td>
       <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">Release and packages uploaded to <tt>ftp-master.FreeBSD.org</tt></td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">FreeBSD 5.0 Released</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">19 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">19 Jan 2003</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">FreeBSD 5.0 is announced to the mailing lists.</td>
  </tr>

  <tr>
    <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">FreeBSD 5.0 Press Release</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">19 Jan 2003</td><td rowspan="1" colspan="1">--</td>
      <td rowspan="1" colspan="1">A formal press release statement is in the works and should be
      released at this time to the www.FreeBSD.org website and various
      tech publications.</td>
  </tr>

</table>


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