From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 10 18:10:41 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4352616A41F for ; Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:10:41 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cperciva@freebsd.org) Received: from pd4mo1so.prod.shaw.ca (shawidc-mo1.cg.shawcable.net [24.71.223.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C4C6243D49 for ; Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:10:40 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cperciva@freebsd.org) Received: from pd2mr8so.prod.shaw.ca (pd2mr8so-qfe3.prod.shaw.ca [10.0.141.11]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0IPR00EY13THED40@l-daemon> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 10 Nov 2005 11:10:29 -0700 (MST) Received: from pn2ml8so.prod.shaw.ca ([10.0.121.152]) by pd2mr8so.prod.shaw.ca (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0IPR00EXE3THIL10@pd2mr8so.prod.shaw.ca> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 10 Nov 2005 11:10:29 -0700 (MST) Received: from [192.168.0.60] (S0106006067227a4a.vc.shawcable.net [24.87.209.6]) by l-daemon (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.18 (built Jul 28 2003)) with ESMTP id <0IPR0030P3TGZ5@l-daemon> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 10 Nov 2005 11:10:29 -0700 (MST) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 10:10:28 -0800 From: Colin Percival In-reply-to: <20051110180048.GB23887@ratchet.nebcorp.com> To: Danny Howard Message-id: <43738D14.9030006@freebsd.org> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: en-us, en X-Enigmail-Version: 0.93.0.0 References: <20051110012313.GB22149@mind.net> <54db43990511091749h7b7c0753vbf7adbce94eff6cc@mail.gmail.com> <20051110081424.GA46702@xor.obsecurity.org> <20051110180048.GB23887@ratchet.nebcorp.com> User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (X11/20051001) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Status of 6.0 for production systems X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:10:41 -0000 Danny Howard wrote: > So ... I am genuinely curious ... if 6.0 is basically 5.4 plus > improvements, why isn't it called 5.5? FreeBSD numbers releases based on compatibility, not based on features. You can take programs compiled for FreeBSD 5.3 (the first release from the 5-stable branch) and run them on FreeBSD 5.4 and know that they will all work; but if you want to run them on FreeBSD 6.0, you might need to recompile them. This is generally more of an issue for kernel modules than it is for applications, but the point remains: If binary interfaces change, the major number should change. Colin Percival