From owner-freebsd-newbies Thu Mar 15 13:25:54 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from ancmail1.state.ak.us (aaa.state.ak.us [146.63.92.75]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7D5C337B718 for ; Thu, 15 Mar 2001 13:25:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from brian_raynes@dnr.state.ak.us) Received: from dnr.state.ak.us ([146.63.110.47]) by ancmail1.state.ak.us (Netscape Messaging Server 4.15) with ESMTP id GA9CUX00.A2M; Thu, 15 Mar 2001 12:25:45 -0900 Message-ID: <3AB133D3.6CF4184F@dnr.state.ak.us> Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 12:27:47 -0900 From: Brian Raynes X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en,pdf MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Steve Cc: "Freebsd-Newbies (E-mail)" Subject: Re: Current vs. Release vs. Stable References: <55E857B71651F848A7852708268C9D161FCD@theloft.thedenn.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Steve wrote: > > OK. I've read a number of documents but it's just not sinking in. > I'm hoping that someone can shed some light on this issue for me. > What is the difference between the current, release, and stable branches > of any given version? > > thanx in advance. > > -steve Current branch - development branch, newest features are developed and tested in this branch. Not necessarily stable and not intended for production use, except for testing purposes. The next major release number with significant new features will come from this branch eventually. stable branch - a branch that does not change feature wise very much at all, but gets bug fixes and occasionally new device drivers - stresses stability. Good for general use and production. There are actually stable branches for each major release branch (2.x, 3.x, 4.x). 3.x and 4.x are currently maintained. You can read the feature list for the x.0 release to differentiate major differences in the respective branches. release - a periodic "snapshot" of stable branch. The easiest way to track the stable branch is to start with the latest release. Releases are sold on CD and help to fund development. That's my newbie understanding of the branches, but I believe it's pretty accurate. If in doubt, post to freebsd-questions, there are more "experts" lurking there :) Brian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message