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Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 16:46:56 -0230
From: Jonathan Anderson <jonathan@FreeBSD.org>
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To: Jason Hellenthal <jhellenthal@dataix.net>
Subject: Re: There is currently no usable release of FreeBSD.
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Cc: "freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org" <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>,
 Tony Li <tony.li@tony.li>
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Jason Hellenthal wrote:
> Legacy . . .
> /adjective/
> COMPUTING
> **
>
>  1.
>     *1*.
>     denoting software or hardware that has been superseded but is
>     difficult to replace because of its wide use.
>
>
>     What about that says unsupported ?


Sure, you're right about the dictionary definition, but in some usage 
(including among certain folks who build, package and use a popular 
open-source alternative to FreeBSD), people treat the word "legacy" as 
synonymous with "obsolete". Perhaps they shouldn't, but many do, and the 
original poster is trying to justify to the compliance-happy parts of an 
organisation why it's ok to base a company's future on something 
labelled as ${perceived-to-be-negative adjective}.

So, rather than use words that are unclear (people in this conversation 
seem to have different perspectives on them), I suggest that we use 
unambiguous language: "branch X will be supported until x/y/zz".


Jon
-- 
Jonathan Anderson
jonathan@FreeBSD.org