best FBSD version for commercial use.

[Daniel Gerzo]

Nerius Landys wrote:
>>> My 2 cents, as far as I know 7.1 will be maintained longer than 7.2
>>> according to the freebsd.org website.  That is, security fixes will be
>>> rolled out for 7.1 a while after 7.2 reaches End Of Life.  That made
>>> me decide to go with 7.1 when I had to make the switch from 7.0 a few
>>> months ago.  8.0 was not out at that time.
 >>
>> I don't think that is correct.  There must be something unclear there.
> 
> http://security.freebsd.org/
> 
> Near the bottom of the page mentioned above, there is a table.
> RELENG_7_1 EoL is January 31, 2011, RELENG_7_2 EoL is May 31, 2010
> according to the chart.  That is a difference of 8 months.

All of these seems to be correct, but it needs a little note. The last 
version from the X-STABLE branch gets the Extended lifetime support. 7.2 
is definitely not the latest release from the stable/7 branch, and that 
is the reason why it has shorter support life time. There, however, will 
be at least 7.3 which will potentially get longer support. And upgrading 
to 7.3 from 7.2 will surely not be a big deal. If you read the mentioned 
web page more carefully, you will see the following paragraph:

Extended
Selected releases (normally every second release plus the last release 
from each -STABLE branch) will be supported by the Security Officer for 
a minimum of 24 months after the release, and for sufficient additional 
time (if needed) to ensure that there is a newer Extended release for at 
least 3 months before the older Extended release expires.

-- 
S pozdravom / Best regards
   Daniel Gerzo, FreeBSD committer