release cycle

[Doug Barton]

Chris wrote:

> So my question remains when we have 7.0 and 6.3 both STABLE releases
> will the ports tree not be supported in 6.3 a just released version of
> FreeBSD?

I can't help but get the impression that you're spoiling for a fight
here, so let me ask you to take step 1, which is relax a little.

You are focusing on released version numbers when you ask about ports
support, and we generally focus on release branches. See
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvs-tags.html
for more information about that. We will be supporting ports for
RELENG_5 and _6, and RELENG_7 after it's created from what is now HEAD.

Where I think the confusion is coming in is in regards to support for
a specific version number that is older than the latest version in
that branch. For example, support for 6.1 which is an older release on
the RELENG_6 branch. We do our best to provide ports support for older
versions on currently supported branches, but it's not always possible
to do so. You can search the archives of the ports list for
information on why just supporting 3 active branches (which will be 4
after RELENG_7 is branched) for over 16,000 ports is a pretty massive
undertaking.

I hope this makes the situation more clear.

Doug

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