uyota 匠の一手

Re: ARRRRGH! Guys, who's breaking -STABLE's GMIRROR code?!。事の発端は、誰かが、6-STABLE を運用機で追いかけていて、GMIRROR の絡みで週末を潰した事らしい。それに対する返信のうちの一つ。

以下にメールから抜粋する。

        No. STABLE means STABLE API.
 
        If you want stable code you run releases.  Between releases
        stable can become unstable.  Think of stable as permanent
        BETA code.  Changes have passed the first level of testing
        in current which is permanent ALPHA code.
 
        Most of the time beta code is perfectly fine to run but
        occasionally things will go wrong.  The point of BETA code
        is to catch those errors that escape detection in the ALPHA
        stage before they make it into a release.  That is done by
        having a wider diversity of clients run the BETA code.

No. STABLE means STABLE API. この一言が、全てを表していると思う。

さらに、FreeBSD Handbook からも、該当箇所、21.2 FreeBSD-CURRENT vs. FreeBSD-STABLE からも抜粋。

21.2.2.1 What Is FreeBSD-STABLE?

FreeBSD-STABLE is our development branch from which major releases are made. Changes go into this branch at a different pace, and with the general assumption that they have first gone into FreeBSD-CURRENT for testing. This is still a development branch, however, and this means that at any given time, the sources for FreeBSD-STABLE may or may not be suitable for any particular purpose. It is simply another engineering development track, not a resource for end-users.

「開発の為のもので、おかしくなっている事もあるかもしれません。」とあります。STABLE や CURRENT を追いかけるときは注意しましょう。