Not merging stuff from FreeBSD-HEAD into production branches, or "hey FreeBSD-HEAD should just be production"

I get asked all the time why I don't backport my patches into stable FreeBSD release branches. It's a good question, so let me explain it here.

I don't get paid to do it.

Ok, so now you ask "but wait, surely the users matter?" Yes, of course they do! But, I also have other things going on in my life, and the stuff I do for fun is .. well, it's the stuff I do for fun. I'm not paid to do FreeBSD work, let alone open source wireless stuff in general.

So then I see posts like this:

https://www.anserinae.net/adventures-in-wifi-freebsd-edition.html

I understand his point of view, I really do. I'm also that user when it comes to a variety of other open source software and I ask why features aren't implemented that seem easy, or why they're not in a stable release. But then I remember that I'm also doing this for fun and it's totally up to me to spend my time however I want.

Now, why am I like this?

Well, the short-hand version is - I used to bend over backwards to try and get stuff in to stable releases of the open source software I once worked on. And that was taken advantage of by a lot of people and companies who turned around to incorporate that work into successful commercial software releases without any useful financial contribution to either myself or the project as a whole. After enough time of this, you realise that hey, maybe my spare time should just be my spare time.

My hope is that if people wish to backport my FreeBSD work to a stable release then they'll either pay me to do it, pay someone else to do it, or see if a company will sponsor that work for their own benefit. I don't want to get into the game of trying to backport things to one and potentially two stable releases and deal with all the ABI changes and support fallout that happens when you are porting things into a mostly ABI stable release. And yes, my spare time is my own.