difference between releases

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2004-11-08 10:32, TM4526 at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 11/8/04 10:12:47 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>jerrymc at clunix.cl.msu.edu writes:
>>In a message dated 11/8/04 5:46:59 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>>keramida at ceid.upatras.gr writes:
>>> Releases are fixed points in time.  They are marked on their respective
>>> branch of development and that's it.  A x.y-RELEASE version is effectively
>>> a symbolic name for a specific moment in time.
>>
>> Wow, thats what a "snapshot" used to be. How discouraging.
>
>> A release is a snapshot - just one that everything (including most ports,
>> although since the release team may not have control over all ports, some
>> may fall by the wayside) has been brought up to that point of development
>> and generaly checked out at that point.  A mere snapshot that is not a
>> release is just the current (momentary) development collection without
>> necessarily making sure everything is at any particular level.
>>
>> How discouraging for you not to understand that.
>
> Its "discouraging", because a "Release" should be " a completed set of
> features that have been tested and thought to be bug-free"

You know that this isn't exactly true.  I have yet to see one "release" of any
product that does not have bugs.  I probably never will.

Get over it already :-P

> Thats what a release is for a real product, and perhaps is the reason why so
> many people are confused?

It's not abnormal for new users to FreeBSD to ask for a clarification of what
a RELEASE really is.  This is neither a bug of the release process nor a fault
of the users themselves.  A short explanation of the semantic difference
between the words `release', `snapshot', `stable', `current' and the way
they're used by the FreeBSD project usually solves any communication problems
that might exist.

You're not helping the original poster by bitching about what a release really
is and why your definition of a release doesn't fit with the FreeBSD project's
definition of what `release' means.

- Giorgos