Version nomenclature [was RELENG_7 to 8]

[Robert Joosten]

Hi,

> STABLE and CURRENT could only point to two things and there were about 
> 10 potential tags involved.

Tags... You say tags. Now, freebsd is an constantly evolving project. It's 
never finished. And when a branch is, it's EOL.

It took me two minutes, back in 97 to get the grasp and at that time the 
security branch had yet to be introduced, before that I tracked 'stable'. 
Go figure.

You know, that's the beauty of this project: it's 'nix, but different. I 
agree with you we should find a solution about all this name-bitching: 
let's encourage them to actualy READ the F. manual. Let's include it in 
the FAQ ! Or include some pointer in UPDATING for those that like to mess 
with source code. Or would you like to rename STABLE into UNSTABLE ? Or 
FIXED ? Or into the $next_upcoming_release_number-ALPHA ? Now that sounds 
appealing to newcomers.... not. I occaisionally run a STABLE box in 
production without any trouble, so it's name is what you get: great 
software, it's stable enough.

We also inject new software releases into our ports collection. I never 
read anything about it's name scheme. Funny, but very relieving IMO.

Cheers.
Robert