Seeking advice for new server: 4.8-REL vs. 4.9-BETA

[Scott Schappell]

Doug Poland wrote:

>I guess I have some confusion between what's -STABLE and -RELEASE and
>when one becomes the other.  Better read up on it.
>  
>
The way I understand it is there are three "branches"

CURRENT - the cutting edge source, use at your own risk, etc (5.x). This 
is a branch that is in development.
STABLE - this is the development branch for a current dot release. For 
example 4.9 right now is in the STABLE  branch and has gone through a 
certain level of testing in CURRENT.  4.9 right now is PRERELEASE, but 
it's still considered STABLE. Since it's still a dvelopment branch, it's 
prone to bugs (but not as many as CURRENT) as used primarily for 
contributors to the project or folks who want to stay as absolutely 
current in their current RELENG version (4).
RELEASE - this is a branch that is the most stable, it's only updated to 
fix security or system issues.

If you're tagging *default tag release=. (that's a literal . not a 
punctuation mark) then you're tracking CURRENT (5.x)
If you're tagging *default tag release=RELENG_4 you're tracking 4.x STABLE
If you're tagging *default tag release=RELENG_4_8 you're tracking 4.8 
RELEASE (security branch) - this is what I'm following in my cvsupfile.

Again, this is how I see it after reading the handbook, and I may be a 
bit off the mark :).

Cheers