Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2021 16:25:02 -0800 From: David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Suggestion for release names? Message-ID: <5b009f30-1710-575e-987d-ebc8bda07f68@holgerdanske.com> In-Reply-To: <20210204121153.6616001f.freebsd@edvax.de> References: <A92FC4A6-A2C4-4D50-880D-615A2A124468@kreme.com> <20210204121153.6616001f.freebsd@edvax.de>
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On 2021-02-04 03:11, Polytropon wrote: > On Wed, 3 Feb 2021 13:34:30 -0700, @lbutlr wrote: >> I know the subject of user confusion on STABLE and RELEASE has come >> up in the past, but I found out that releng is also confusing as I >> was recently talking to someone who only ran releng versions of >> freebsd because he thought that was an English only version of >> Release. >> I know this is probably futile and there's little reason to change, >> but I think all three animus could be better. > > The "problem" is that those termini technici all carry a > well understood meaning, > Even worse, if you try to do a mapping of > > RELEASE-p<n> | > RELEASE | | home user > PRERELEASE | | embedded > RC<n> | is to be | desktop > BETA | used for | server > ALPHA | | tester > STABLE | | developer > CURRENT / HEAD | > > this will be very hard and probably won't work. ;-) I suspect that the terms chosen however many years ago have undergone shifts in meaning, which reduces understanding. I think people could better deal with vocabulary if they had a better understanding of the FreeBSD release engineering process and its deliverables. > Maybe the following documentation parts should be more prominently > presented on the home page? > > https://www.freebsd.org/releases/ > > https://www.freebsd.org/relnotes/ > > https://docs.freebsd.org/doc/3.5-RELEASE/usr/share/doc/handbook/current-stable.html > > https://docs.freebsd.org/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html I disagree, but will refrain from commenting on the FreeBSD website [1]. Michael W. Lucas in "Absolute FreeBSD", 3 e., pp. 422-427 [2], discusses "FreeBSD versions". Figure 18-1 is very helpful: - The trunk is labeled "FreeBSD-current". I believe this corresponds to -CURRENT deliverables [3]. - Two branches are shown -- "FreeBSD-stable 13" and "FreeBSD-stable 14". I believe these correspond to -STABLE deliverables [4]. - There are dashed lines marked "Improvements" from the trunk to the branches. I believe those that arrive at numbers -- 13.0, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, etc. -- correspond to -RELEASE deliverables [5] and those that do not correspond to patches. I suggest adding a similar diagram to the FreeBSD website, supplemented with explanatory text. David [1] https://www.freebsd.org/ [2] https://mwl.io/nonfiction/os#af3e [3] https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/arm64/13.0-CURRENT/ [4] https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/amd64/12.2-STABLE/ [5] https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/12.2/
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