From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 8 10:46:12 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0037016A4BF for ; Mon, 8 Sep 2003 10:46:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from papagena.rockefeller.edu (papagena.rockefeller.edu [129.85.41.71]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F3A4843F75 for ; Mon, 8 Sep 2003 10:46:10 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rsidd@papagena.rockefeller.edu) Received: from papagena.rockefeller.edu (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) h88HjA9H023904; Mon, 8 Sep 2003 13:45:10 -0400 Received: (from rsidd@localhost) by papagena.rockefeller.edu (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id h88HjARl023902; Mon, 8 Sep 2003 13:45:10 -0400 Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 13:45:10 -0400 From: Rahul Siddharthan To: Brad Knowles Message-ID: <20030908174510.GA23832@online.fr> Mail-Followup-To: Brad Knowles , freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i X-Operating-System: Linux 2.4.20-20.9smp i686 cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The Old Way Was Better X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 17:46:12 -0000 Brad Knowles wrote: > > BETA -- Ambiguous synonym of #-BETA, but useful in > > context. > > (Was: STABLE.) > > #-BETA -- Name of the RELENG_# branch. > > (Was: #-STABLE.) > > (Non-existent until #.#-STABLE is created.) > > (Example: 4-BETA = RELENG_4) > > No, not correct. Problem is that bugs are sometimes caught up in > a -RELEASE, which actually won't run or even install on certain types > of systems. There's a reason STABLE is called that -- it's almost > always better than the most recent RELEASE for the same line, since > it is basically just that same RELEASE plus bug fixes. There are > times when this is not true (mostly when some new feature has been > recently MFC'ed, or when a -RELEASE has been cut for CURRENT), but > this is true far more often than not. Not true. At one time this is what the handbook claimed, but it was updated to better reflect the true situation which is (to quote the handbook): http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html FreeBSD-STABLE is our development branch from which major releases are made. Changes go into this branch at a different pace, and with the general assumption that they have first gone into FreeBSD-CURRENT for testing. This is still a development branch, however, and this means that at any given time, the sources for FreeBSD-STABLE may or may not be suitable for any particular purpose. It is simply another engineering development track, not a resource for end-users. ... While it is true that security fixes also go into the FreeBSD-STABLE branch, you do not need to track FreeBSD-STABLE to do this.... ... we do not recommend that you blindly track FreeBSD-STABLE, and it is particularly important that you do not update any production servers to FreeBSD-STABLE without first thoroughly testing the code in your development environment. There is however a -RELEASE branch, which is the RELEASE plus bugfixes.