What's the difference between "Release" versus "Errata" versus "Security" branches???

[Andrew Berg]

On 2014.11.06 12:05, edflecko . wrote:
> Can someone explain what the differences between these three are for me?
> These sure sound a lot alike to me -
> 
> http://www.bsdnow.tv/tutorials/stable-current - "The -RELEASE branch is
> arguably the most stable branch of FreeBSD. That's exactly what it's
> designed to be, what the everyday end user installs and uses. When a
> -RELEASE is cut, the only updates it gets are either critical fixes or
> security flaws."
There is no 'errata' or 'security' branch. -RELEASE gets errata and security
fixes (technically, this is the releng branch, as the release branches are
never updated at all). When you update a -RELEASE version using freebsd-update
(or follow the corresponding releng branch), you get just security fixes and
sometimes minor and non-disruptive bug fixes alongside security fixes (errata).

The other branches are -CURRENT and -STABLE, which the handbook explains:
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/current-stable.html