Determining whether future releases are Normal or Extended

[asteriskRoss]

Is it decided in advance for how long a FreeBSD release will be maintained? How is the decision made?

From the FreeBSD Security Information webpage, I see that releases are classed as:

Early adopter Releases which are published from the -CURRENT branch will be supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 6 months after the release.
Normal Releases which are published from a -STABLE branch will be supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 12 months after the release, and for sufficient additional time (if needed) to ensure that there is a newer release for at least 3 months before the older Normal release expires.
Extended Selected releases (normally every second release plus the last release from each -STABLE branch) will be supported by the Security Officer for a minimum of 24 months after the release, and for sufficient additional time (if needed) to ensure that there is a newer Extended release for at least 3 months before the older Extended release expires.

I couldn't find a page offering information on future releases (apart from the "normally every second release" statement from the quotation above) nor discern a pattern/convention from previous releases. Can someone point me in the right direction?

The immediate reason for my question is that I'm considering waiting a little while for 10.0-RELEASE before setting up a couple of servers. If it will be an Extended release that would encourage me to wait

 

[kpa]

Re: Determining whether future releases are Normal or Extend

10.0 will not be an extended support release, that much is sure because it's basically a BETA version that will have some problems that make it hard to keep backporting security and other fixes to it. The following releases might get extended support release status if the release engineering team sees them good enough for that status. I've gathered that it's mostly about the number of known problems and misfeatures in each release that affects the decision. I wouldn't use 10.0 on production servers but wait for 10.1, if the pattern from FreeBSD 9 is repeated the 10.1 will be much more solid than 10.0 and will be also an extended support release.

 

[asteriskRoss]

Re: Determining whether future releases are Normal or Extend

Thanks for the insight, @kpa. I guess making the decision on a release-by-release basis certainly offers flexibility rather than forcing support of a particular release that's lacking commonly desired features. I'm certainly sticking with 9.2 for now and if support ceases in September 2014 as scheduled I'll upgrade then.

 

[vermaden]

Re: Determining whether future releases are Normal or Extend

@asteriskRoss
In most cases it's like that:

 X.0-RELEASE Normal
 X.1-RELEASE Extended
 X.2-RELEASE Normal
 X.3-RELEASE Extended
 X.4-RELEASE Extended
[X.5-RELEASE Extended]
[X.6-RELEASE Extended]

 

[pkubaj]

Re: Determining whether future releases are Normal or Extend

AFAIK it depends on the number after the period. If the number is even, the release is normal. If it's odd, it's extended. There's one exception to this rule: the last RELEASE in the branch is always extended. E.g.

• x.0 - normal
• x.1 - extended
• x.2 - normal
• x.3 - extended
• x.4 - normal, but if it's the last in the branch, it's extended.

 

[SirDice]

Re: Determining whether future releases are Normal or Extend

AFAIK it depends on the number after the period. If the number is even, the release is normal. If it's odd, it's extended. There's one exception to this rule: the last RELEASE in the branch is always extended. Eg.
x.0 - normal
x.1 - extended
x.2 - normal
x.3 - extended
x.4 - normal, but if it's the last in the branch, it's extended.

This is the correct process except for the .0 releases. They go end-of-life as soon as a .1 is released.

 

[bh123]

Re: Determining whether future releases are Normal or Extend

Since FreeBSD 10.0 has been released, will release 9.2's support "Type" change from "Normal" to "Extended" given it is the last 9.x release, per the Supported FreeBSD releases information?

 

[SirDice]

Re: Determining whether future releases are Normal or Extend

It won't be the last from 9.x. There will be at least a 9.3 and perhaps even a 9.4. There won't be another 8 release though. If the previous release schedules are anything to go by I'd expect a 9.3-RELEASE next and after that a 10.1.