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From: chad@anasazi.com (Chad R. Larson)
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Subject: Re: -current and -stable mailing lists
To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 15:16:18 -0700 (MST)
Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <8785.858624268@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Mar 17, 97 10:44:28 am
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> So we picked poor names for our branches.  We blew it.  It's not that
> hard to do in an evolutionary environment like this one, but now
> rather than continue to natter on for another dozen rounds about how
> terrible the current naming scheme is, I really would prefer to see
> the "general public" answer these two simple questions:
> 
> 	a) Would the confusion caused by an abrupt name change
> 	   exceed the confusion caused by the current conventions?
> 
> 	b) Assuming that the answer to (a) is no and now you've got
> 	   carte blanche to change things, what names would you choose
> 	   to describe the 3 tracks of development (mostly quiescent,
> 	   current release track, bleeding edge development) which you
> 	   feel would most adequately convey their purpose to the
> 	   layperson?  Explain your rationale for each choice.

As several people have now noted, the biggest confusion is the
difference in the number of names (2) and reasonable trees (3).

I'd vote that all the trees still available for download and/or
manipulation be identified by their number.  That is, I could easily see
2.1.7, 2.2.0, 2.2.1 and 3.0 all SUPable and FTPable.  Let's leave them
that way.

Then, to help deconfuse the newbies and occasional visitors, we can add
descriptive names to some of those trees.  There is a bit of a
discussion in the Handbook about the current names.  I think symbolic
links on the servers and a paragraph or three in the handbook would
suffice to resolve the purpose of the trees, and the symbolic links would
make it clear that they are aliases for the "true" names and will probably
be repointed in the future..

And, finally, for those names I'd vote:

    2.1.7 - frozen
    2.2.x - released
    3.0.x - experimental

	-crl
--
Chad R. Larson (CRL22)                          Brother, can you paradigm?
602-870-3330    chad@anasazi.com     chad@anasaz.UUCP      chad@dcfinc.com 
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