From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 18 14:00:33 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B1DCB16A4D3 for ; Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:00:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from enterprise.sd73.bc.ca (romulus-net.sd73.bc.ca [142.24.13.134]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DA37F43D1F for ; Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:00:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from fcash-ml@sd73.bc.ca) Received: from mailtest.sd73.bc.ca (mailtest.sd73.bc.ca [10.10.10.14]) i1ILpu7O021337; Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:51:57 -0800 Received: from 192.168.0.200 (SquirrelMail authenticated user fcash) by mailtest.sd73.bc.ca with HTTP; Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:00:06 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <50192.192.168.0.200.1077141606.squirrel@mailtest.sd73.bc.ca> In-Reply-To: References: Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:00:06 -0800 (PST) From: "Freddie Cash" To: "David Beukes" User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 Importance: Normal X-RAVMilter-Version: 8.4.1(snapshot 20020919) (enterprise.sd73.bc.ca) cc: stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Stable vs Release vs Current X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:00:33 -0000 > Have been using FreeBSD for about a year now but haven't > understood or found a definitive answer to the > versions/branches. Would appreciate it if someone could > shed some light; a bit of history follows: There are two development branches for FreeBSD: -CURRENT and -STABLE. -CURRENT is where the majority of all new development it done. This development branch is what the next major release of FreeBSD will be from. Right now, -CURRENT is what will become FreeBSD 5.x. The cvs/cvsup tag for this is a period ".". -STABLE is the everyday, production-quality development branch. New technology is tested in -CURRENT, then ported over to -STABLE as needed. Some new development occurs in this branch, but it's not a common thing. Right now, -STABLE is FreeBSD 4.x. The cvs/cvsup tag for this iis RELENG_4. A release is nothing more than a snapshot taken from either of the branches, put through some testing, deemed good enough for use, and released to the world. Right now, a release can come from either branch. The latest releases are 4.9 and 5.2. When you installed 4.4, you were running 4.4-RELEASE. When you upgraded to 4.8, you were running 4.8-RELEASE. And when you upgrade to 4.9, you will be running 4.9-RELEASE. After each release, a new branch is created to hold just security fixes for that release. This is known as the RELENG_X_Y branch, where X is the major version number, and Y is the minor version number. For instance, there is a RELENG_4_7 for security fixes to 4.7-RELEASE, there is a RELENG_4_8 for security fixes to 4.8-RELEASE, and there is a RELENG_4_9 for security fixes to 4.9-RELEASE.