On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 11:05:01AM -0500, Alicia da Conceicao wrote:
> The NetBSD ftp site has what appears to be a complete 1.5
> distribution of the i386 port, dated 29 Nov 2000, at:
> 
> 	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.5/i386/
> 
> But there is no mention of a NetBSD-1.5 release on the
> official NetBSD website at:
> 
> 	http://www.netbsd.org/

Correct. Some of the architectures are still building/uploading
their releases. There will be an announcement soon.

> the website only mentions the NetBSD-1.4.3 release, dated
> 25 Nov 2000.

This will also be updated when the announcement is out.

> Why is there no mention of the NetBSD-1.5 release, is it
> still beta?  If so, then why is it not specified as beta?

It's not beta, it is the release.

> If not, then why on Earth is there a release of version
> 1.4.3 just 4 days before the 1.5 release?

Because 1.4.3 is a patch release on the 1.4 branch. Some
users may wish to follow the more minor upgrade, that
gets them device support and security patches without
all of the new features in 1.5

Some people don't like to run a 'dot zero' release, and
might wait for 1.5.1, but many ethernet cards etc are
covered in 1.4.3 that weren't in 1.4.2

> What give with all this?  Is this some of sick joke to
> force us to download and install two new distributions
> within a few days of each other?

There certainly wasn't any secret made of this, it has
been discussed on many mailing lists that there would
be a (probably) last 1.4 branch release, followed by
the initial 1.5 release.

It's up to you which one you want to use. 1.5 carries lots
of improvements, but also requires a move to ELF on the
i386 platform. Decide for yourself which best suits your
needs.

-- 
David Maxwell, david@vex.net|david@maxwell.net -->
If you don't spend energy getting what you want,
	You'll have to spend it dealing with what you get.
					      - Unknown