STABLE vs CURRENT packages

[Patrick Powell]

I just know that this is somewhere in the FreeBSD Handbook.
And I probably deserve the scorn and snickers these questions will get.

I just checked the .ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/ site 
and saw:


packages-8-stable 
<ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-8-stable/> 	
	10/11/12 	00:00:00
packages-8.3-release 
<ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-8.3-release/> 	
	03/28/12 	00:00:00
packages-8.4-release 
<ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-8.4-release/> 	
	05/09/13 	05:06:00
packages-9-current 
<ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-9-current> 	
	12/09/11 	00:00:00
packages-9-stable 
<ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-9-stable/> 	
	04/16/13 	15:20:00
packages-9.1-release 
<ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-9.1-release/> 	
	04/11/13 	03:29:00
packages-stable 
<ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/packages-stable> 	
	11/07/11 	00:00:00


I noted that the dates on the some of the packages in packages-8-stable 
were 2012,  while most of those in packages-8.4.-release were much newer 
- 2013.

And I noticed that there was no 'packages-8-current' directory.

Questions:  what is the relationship between the 'stable', 'release', 
and 'current' versions?
And where is this documented in the FreeBSD Handbook?
Is there supposed to be a 'packages-8-current' directory?

OK,  start the snickers and humiliation :-) ...

-- 
Patrick Powell                 Astart Technologies
papowell at astart.com            1530 Jamacha Road, Suite X,
Network and System             El Cajon, CA 92019
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