freebsd-announce Digest, Vol 517, Issue 1

[Patrick Dung]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Matthew.

> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 19:32:18 +0100
> From: Matthew Seaman <matthew at FreeBSD.org>
> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: freebsd-announce Digest, Vol 517, Issue 1
> 
> On 12/07/2014 03:56, Patrick Dung wrote:
> > But do you find a bit strange with the current support schedule?
> 
> No -- it's been like that for years.  Odd-numbered releases are
> generally 'extended support' releases, and will outlast the
> even-numbered release that succeeds them.  It's a compromise between
> providing the support lifetime that various corporate users of FreeBSD
> want, and not having the resources to support every FreeBSD release for
> that length of time.
> 
> Note however that the policy is changing.  As announced at BSDCan
> earlier this year, the support focus has shifted to the major branch (eg
> '10.x') which is guaranteed at least a 5 year lifetime, but only the
> latest point release on each branch (eg '10.1-RELEASE') will be
> supported.  This is how the 10.x series and anything subsequent are
> going to be handled.  It can't be applied retroactively to 9.x because
> that would mean abrogating previously made support guarantees.
> 
>     Cheers,
> 
>     Matthew
> 
> -- 
> Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil