RELEASE vice CURRENT vice STABLE

[JB]

Polytropon <freebsd <at> edvax.de> writes:

> ...
> See the text file /usr/share/misc/bsd-family-tree for
> details.
> 

Hi,
thanks for your response.

I looked at that diagram of UNIX and *BSD history.
When I go to the bottom of it (CURRENT state) I see a difference
in how FreeBSD and other *BSD are developed.
I am not sure that I should interpret it this way, but perhaps it
is a case of WYSIWYG.

The other *BSD are developed sequentially, that is, there is one
branch and each major/minor release cycle follows the previous one
(at no time there is a parallel major/minor branch development).

In case of FreeBSD, it seems (visually) that there is some mainline
CURRENT branch repository since FreeBSD 1.0 time, from which major
branches are started in parallel (right now there are 8.2-CURRENT
and 9.0-CURRENT developed, if I am correct), and they end their own
life so to speak, without affecting other major branches; but there
were periods of sequential dvelopments as well, e.g. 5.0 thru 5.2.
So, this is the overview, as I see it.

But, if my interpretation above is correct, then the question
arises at what time at least some of the changes (not all, because
some may be confined to individual branches only) from major and
their subsequent minor branches are contributed back to
the mainline CURRENT branch, so next major branches can start and
build upon some common base in an organized manner ?

I would appreciate your comments.

JB