FreeBSD Version Release numbers

[Rahul Siddharthan]

Craig Reyenda wrote:
> I was just wondering what people think of changing the FreeBSD release
> numbering system. Here is my idea:
> 
> -FreeBSD 4.X is stable right now.
> -FreeBSD 5.0,5.1(maybe 5.2) are not-so-stable.
> -FreeBSD 5.3 is supposed to be.
> 
> Perhaps all odd major numbers should be considered development versions.  5.3
> would instead be called 6.0,

I think you're thinking of the linux system.  It won't actually solve
anything.  One reason FreeBSD 5.0 and 5.1 are not too stable (apart from
the ambitious changes in 5-CURRENT) is that they haven't had enough
realworld exposure; if you declare that they're a "development release",
you'll only postpone the wide exposure to 6.0, which will then have the
same problems.

Linux suffers from this too, only more so.  It took until 2.4.10 or so
for the 2.4 kernel series to start to become stable -- FreeBSD normally
"gets there" by the x.1 or x.2 release.  Linus is already talking of
releasing a 2.6.0-test series, when 2.5 is clearly nowhere near ready
yet, simply because more people will test it that way.

Rahul