Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 12:31:19 -0800 (PST) From: Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.org> To: Jamie Norwood <mistwolf@mushhaven.net> Cc: Oleg Ogurok <oleg@ogurok.com>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: which branch? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0003161224170.72812-100000@freefall.freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <20000316122126.A90676@mushhaven.net>
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On Thu, 16 Mar 2000, Jamie Norwood wrote:
> -STABLE is supposed to be safe to put on a server. If 4.x is .not. yet
> safe... Why is it in -STABLE? This kinda bugs me as it fairly well defeats
> the point of having a -STABLE if it isn't, in fact, stable.
-STABLE means the branch which only gets minimal changes, and is
*intended* to be stable, safe code. However even -stable breaks sometimes,
and at the start of a new branch which has had as many major code changes
as 4.0 did, there are bound to be problems to be resolved. The same
situation existed with 3.0, which only really "stabilized" about 3.1 or
3.2, and with 2.2.0.
Basically the recommendation has always been that the code only truly
settles down after a few releases along the branch and if you really can't
afford to deal with problems you should wait for 4.3 or even 4.4 before
installing the 4.x series (we used to jump to a .5 release, e.g. 2.2.2 ->
2.2.5, when it was considered the branch had become truly conservatively
stable and safe, but we don't do this any more, so the .3 release is
usually a reasonable equivalent).
However, there are a lot of people who still run 3.0 or 3.1 systems
without problems, so the "early deployers" certainly don't always find
themselves in trouble.
Kris
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