From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Fri Feb 5 00:25:23 2021 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0DD40535B22 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 2021 00:25:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dpchrist@holgerdanske.com) Received: from holgerdanske.com (holgerdanske.com [184.105.128.27]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits) key-exchange ECDHE (P-256) server-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits) server-digest SHA256 client-signature RSA-PSS (2048 bits) client-digest SHA256) (Client CN "www.holgerdanske.com", Issuer "www.holgerdanske.com" (not verified)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4DWx5Y6ycyz3j05 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 2021 00:25:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dpchrist@holgerdanske.com) Received: from 99.100.19.101 (99-100-19-101.lightspeed.frokca.sbcglobal.net [99.100.19.101]) by holgerdanske.com with ESMTPSA (TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256:TLSv1.3:Kx=any:Au=any:Enc=AESGCM(128):Mac=AEAD) (SMTP-AUTH username dpchrist@holgerdanske.com, mechanism PLAIN) for ; Thu, 4 Feb 2021 16:25:10 -0800 Subject: Re: Suggestion for release names? To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <20210204121153.6616001f.freebsd@edvax.de> From: David Christensen Message-ID: <5b009f30-1710-575e-987d-ebc8bda07f68@holgerdanske.com> Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2021 16:25:02 -0800 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.12.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20210204121153.6616001f.freebsd@edvax.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 4DWx5Y6ycyz3j05 X-Spamd-Bar: - Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=none (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of dpchrist@holgerdanske.com has no SPF policy when checking 184.105.128.27) smtp.mailfrom=dpchrist@holgerdanske.com X-Spamd-Result: default: False [-1.10 / 15.00]; SUBJECT_ENDS_QUESTION(1.00)[]; RCVD_VIA_SMTP_AUTH(0.00)[]; RCVD_TLS_ALL(0.00)[]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; RBL_DBL_DONT_QUERY_IPS(0.00)[184.105.128.27:from]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_ALL(0.00)[]; MID_RHS_MATCH_FROM(0.00)[]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; TO_DN_NONE(0.00)[]; PREVIOUSLY_DELIVERED(0.00)[freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]; AUTH_NA(1.00)[]; RCPT_COUNT_ONE(0.00)[1]; SPAMHAUS_ZRD(0.00)[184.105.128.27:from:127.0.2.255]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_LONG(-1.00)[-1.000]; NEURAL_HAM_SHORT(-1.00)[-1.000]; DMARC_NA(0.00)[holgerdanske.com]; NEURAL_HAM_MEDIUM(-1.00)[-1.000]; R_SPF_NA(0.00)[no SPF record]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; R_DKIM_NA(0.00)[]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; RCVD_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2]; ASN(0.00)[asn:6939, ipnet:184.104.0.0/15, country:US]; MAILMAN_DEST(0.00)[freebsd-questions] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.34 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2021 00:25:23 -0000 On 2021-02-04 03:11, Polytropon wrote: > On Wed, 3 Feb 2021 13:34:30 -0700, @lbutlr wrote: >> I know the subject of user confusion on STABLE and RELEASE has come >> up in the past, but I found out that releng is also confusing as I >> was recently talking to someone who only ran releng versions of >> freebsd because he thought that was an English only version of >> Release. >> I know this is probably futile and there's little reason to change, >> but I think all three animus could be better. > > The "problem" is that those termini technici all carry a > well understood meaning, > Even worse, if you try to do a mapping of > > RELEASE-p | > RELEASE | | home user > PRERELEASE | | embedded > RC | is to be | desktop > BETA | used for | server > ALPHA | | tester > STABLE | | developer > CURRENT / HEAD | > > this will be very hard and probably won't work. ;-) I suspect that the terms chosen however many years ago have undergone shifts in meaning, which reduces understanding. I think people could better deal with vocabulary if they had a better understanding of the FreeBSD release engineering process and its deliverables. > Maybe the following documentation parts should be more prominently > presented on the home page? > > https://www.freebsd.org/releases/ > > https://www.freebsd.org/relnotes/ > > https://docs.freebsd.org/doc/3.5-RELEASE/usr/share/doc/handbook/current-stable.html > > https://docs.freebsd.org/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html I disagree, but will refrain from commenting on the FreeBSD website [1]. Michael W. Lucas in "Absolute FreeBSD", 3 e., pp. 422-427 [2], discusses "FreeBSD versions". Figure 18-1 is very helpful: - The trunk is labeled "FreeBSD-current". I believe this corresponds to -CURRENT deliverables [3]. - Two branches are shown -- "FreeBSD-stable 13" and "FreeBSD-stable 14". I believe these correspond to -STABLE deliverables [4]. - There are dashed lines marked "Improvements" from the trunk to the branches. I believe those that arrive at numbers -- 13.0, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, etc. -- correspond to -RELEASE deliverables [5] and those that do not correspond to patches. I suggest adding a similar diagram to the FreeBSD website, supplemented with explanatory text. David [1] https://www.freebsd.org/ [2] https://mwl.io/nonfiction/os#af3e [3] https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/arm64/13.0-CURRENT/ [4] https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/amd64/12.2-STABLE/ [5] https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/12.2/