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Date:      Fri, 3 Aug 2001 10:56:56 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Richard Glidden <rglidden@zaphod.wox.org>
To:        "Antoine Beaupre (LMC)" <Antoine.Beaupre@ericsson.ca>
Cc:        <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: RELENG_4_3 calls itself -RELEASE?
Message-ID:  <20010803104752.R62981-100000@charon.acheron.localnet>
In-Reply-To: <3B6AAE91.6050103@lmc.ericsson.se>

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On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Antoine Beaupre (LMC) wrote:

> Go for RUTABAGA. It's cute.
>
> Besides, Debian does it and everybody likes it. It allows us to pick
> names in honor of dead people. Yay. ;)

Actually, what Debian does makes a bit more sense than this.  They have
codenames for their development branches (woody, potato, etc), and then
when a version is released, it gets a number (2.1, 2.2, etc).  Security
fixes occasionally get bundled up into a new release, which is given
another number (2.2r1, 2.2r2, etc).  Sure, people close to project still
call versions by their codenames, but the numbers make it very clear for
new users.

I personally think changing to nonsensical names is perfect for
development purposes.  Changing -CURRENT and -STABLE would be a good idea.
However, changing -RELEASE to -SOMESILLYWORD, or using -SOMESILLYWORD as
the security branch implies that a) the software is childish or
unprofessional, and b) the software is not "complete" in the sense that it
is a tested, ready for use release.

> Is it me or this thing comes up about twice a month?

It will continue to come up, even with -SILLYNAME.  People will go "Should
I be using -RUTABAGA or -MELON?  Why don't you call it -STABLE instead?"
No matter WHAT name you pick, there will be confusion as to exactly what
it means.

So far, I think the best idea is to just leave it all alone, and at most,
stick a patch number on the end of -RELEASE to indicate fixes from the
security branch or go to a 3 digit versioning system (4.3.1, 4.3.2, etc).
That was already done for FreeBSD 4.1.1, and although I don't know what
technical issues it brought up, I thought it was very clear, from a user
perspective, that it's just 4.1 plus a little extra.

- Richard


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