difference between releases

[Jud]

On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 18:29:43 -0500 (EST), Jerry McAllister  
<jerrymc at clunix.cl.msu.edu> wrote:

[snip]
>> My only point was that a "Release" should not be "just another  
>> snapshot", there
>> should be some "plan".
[snip]
> It is more than just another snapshot.  It is a special snapshot that
> has things frozen and tested in place to make sure they all work together
> at that level - sort of a barrier condition.  Daily snapshots do not have
> that barrier condition, but are merely a dump of the source files as they
> are at the moment.
[snip]

The 5.3-RELEASE announcement contains several links that provide good  
information regarding its features and bugs, such as both are known after  
an extended period of real-world testing.  See <URL:  
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/relnotes.html> and <URL:  
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/errata.html>.  With this and other  
available information (e.g., mailing list discussions over the weeks of  
testing, and the source code itself for those capable and interested),  
users are free to decide for themselves which if any version of FreeBSD  
they wish to run.  As a desktop user responsible only to myself, I have  
found -CURRENT to be more than sufficiently stable for my needs.  If I ran  
a server and were responsible to others, I might decide that the most  
recent 4.x version, 5.3-RELEASE, or the  
5.3-plus-security-and-other-critical-fixes branch fit my needs better.

Jud