Packages available for different FreeBSD versions

[RW]

On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:05:27 -0500
Andrew Gould <andrewlylegould at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 9:27 PM, RW<rwmaillists at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:41:12 -0500
> > Andrew Gould <andrewlylegould at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> STABLE is what it sounds like.
> >
> > I don't think it is what it sounds like - STABLE branches are
> > development branches with stable binary interfaces. It's the
> > security branches that are intended for production use.
> >
> 
> From:
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/version-guide/index.html
> 
> "During the lifetime of each major release, an individual branch may
> also be termed STABLE. This indicates that the FreeBSD Project
> believes that the branch is of sufficiently proven quality to be used
> by a wide range of users.

Right, sufficiently proven quality to be used by a wide range of users
for beta testing.

I'm not saying that the stable branches shouldn't be used for production
use, just that it's inadvisable to use them without a clear
understanding of the reason why.