From owner-freebsd-stable  Thu Apr  5  6:47:30 2001
Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Received: from cisco.com (sword.cisco.com [161.44.208.100])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP
	id 58FF037B50B; Thu,  5 Apr 2001 06:47:26 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from sjt@cisco.com)
Received: from sjt-u10.cisco.com (sjt-u10.cisco.com [10.85.30.63])
	by cisco.com (8.8.5-Cisco.1/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA21197;
	Thu, 5 Apr 2001 09:47:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: Steve Tremblett <sjt@cisco.com>
Received: (sjt@localhost) by sjt-u10.cisco.com (8.8.5-Cisco.1/CISCO.WS.1.2) id JAA03586; Thu, 5 Apr 2001 09:47:24 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <200104051347.JAA03586@sjt-u10.cisco.com>
Subject: Re: Further question Re: cvsupped to RELENG_4 but got 4.3-RC
To: ben@freebsd.org (Ben Smithurst)
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 09:47:24 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <20010405134044.A72405@scientia.demon.co.uk> from "Ben Smithurst" at Apr 05, 2001 01:40:44 PM
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL1]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

+--- Ben Smithurst wrote:
| 
| Did you read the first sentence of that FAQ entry?  "Short answer: it's
| just a name."
| 
| If you cvsup the RELENG_4 branch, you're getting FreeBSD-stable, whether
| it be called -STABLE, -RC, -BETA, -FISHCAKE, -UNSTABLE-AS-HELL, or
| even -CURRENT if someone felt like playing an April Fool's day joke in
| /sys/conf/newvers.sh. :-)
| 

I was under the impression that 4-STABLE was primarily for bugfixes
applied to the 4.2-RELEASE codebase, and 4-CURRENT is for development
of new features.  Given that rationale, 4.3-RC should be a preliminary
merge of CURRENT code into STABLE.  The intruduction of (relatively)
unproven code into an established as-stable-as-possible codebase
introduces instability until after it has been tested, therefore just
because 4.3-RC == 4-STABLE, that does not imply that 4.3-RC == stable.

People aren't concerned with the NAME, they are concerned about
updating production machines to what is supposedly the latest bugfixed
version, and getting a beta version instead.  While the code in the new
features may be of the highest quality and could possibly be bug free,
if I'm running a frontline webserver I don't want to be the guy who
discovers a bug in this new code.  Then again, once I have a working
config on that webserver, I shouldn't be updating all that often and
only for specific fixes, but that is another can of worms.

I'd prefer to stay with 4-STABLE from the date of the codefreeze as
opposed to 4.3-RC.  I'll be waiting until 4.3-RELEASE before updating.

my $0.02 (Canadian)

-- 
Steve Tremblett
Cisco Systems

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message