There is no defined model for how people write code in FreeBSD. However, Niels Jørgenssen has suggested a model of how written code is integrated into the project.
The “development release” is the FreeBSD-CURRENT ("-CURRENT") branch and the “production release” is the FreeBSD-STABLE branch ("-STABLE") [Jørgensen, 2001].
This is a model for one change, and shows that after coding, developers seek community review and try integrating it with their own systems. After integrating the change into the development release, called FreeBSD-CURRENT, it is tested by many users and developers in the FreeBSD community. After it has gone through enough testing, it is merged into the production release, called FreeBSD-STABLE. Unless each stage is finished successfully, the developer needs to go back and make modifications in the code and restart the process. To integrate a change with either -CURRENT or -STABLE is called making a commit.
Jørgensen found that most FreeBSD developers work individually, meaning that this model is used in parallel by many developers on the different ongoing development efforts. A developer can also be working on multiple changes, so that while he is waiting for review or people to test one or more of his changes, he may be writing another change.
As each commit represents an increment, this is a massively incremental model. The commits are in fact so frequent that during one year [3] , 85427 commits were made, making a daily average of 233 commits.
Within the “code” bracket in Jørgensen's figure, each programmer has his own working style and follows his own development models. The bracket could very well have been called “development” as it includes requirements gathering and analysis, system and detailed design, implementation and verification. However, the only output from these stages is the source code or system documentation.
From a stepwise model's perspective (such as the waterfall model), the other brackets can be seen as further verification and system integration. This system integration is also important to see if a change is accepted by the community. Up until the code is committed, the developer is free to choose how much to communicate about it to the rest of the project. In order for -CURRENT to work as a buffer (so that bright ideas that had some undiscovered drawbacks can be backed out) the minimum time a commit should be in -CURRENT before merging it to -STABLE is 3 days. Such a merge is referred to as an MFC (Merge From Current).
It is important to notice the word “change”. Most commits do not contain radical new features, but are maintenance updates.
The only exceptions from this model are security fixes and changes to features that are deprecated in the -CURRENT branch. In these cases, changes can be committed directly to the -STABLE branch.
In addition to many people working on the project, there are many related projects to the FreeBSD Project. These are either projects developing brand new features, sub-projects or projects whose outcome is incorporated into FreeBSD [4]. These projects fit into the FreeBSD Project just like regular development efforts: they produce code that is integrated with the FreeBSD Project. However, some of them (like Ports and Documentation) have the privilege of being applicable to both branches or commit directly to both -CURRENT and -STABLE.
There is no standards to how design should be done, nor is design collected in a centralised repository. The main design is that of 4.4BSD. [5] As design is a part of the “Code” bracket in Jørgenssen's model, it is up to every developer or sub-project how this should be done. Even if the design should be stored in a central repository, the output from the design stages would be of limited use as the differences of methodologies would make them poorly if at all interoperable. For the overall design of the project, the project relies on the sub-projects to negotiate fit interfaces between each other rather than to dictate interfacing.
[3] The period from January 1st, 2004 to December 31st, 2004 was examined to find this number.
[4] For instance, the development of the Bluetooth stack started as a sub-project until it was deemed stable enough to be merged into the -CURRENT branch. Now it is a part of the core FreeBSD system.
[5] According to Kirk McKusick, after 20 years of developing UNIX operating systems, the interfaces are for the most part figured out. There is therefore no need for much design. However, new applications of the system and new hardware leads to some implementations being more beneficial than those that used to be preferred. One example is the introduction of web browsing that made the normal TCP/IP connection a short burst of data rather than a steady stream over a longer period of time.