The Old Way Was Better

[Rahul Siddharthan]

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.