Could those who are happily pasting in paragraphs of replies to
	the question please read
	http://www.netbsd.org/Releases/release-map.html
	and either make any updates themselves, or email any suggestions
	to someone who can (even me).

	I'd do it myself, but I'm busy fixing other stuff..

		David/absolute

          -=-  "Give me one last video, just dressed in black"  -=-

On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Greg Hudson wrote:

> You're gonna get about 80 replies to that question message, but I bet
> mine will be the only one with ASCII art.
> 
> Here is a little diagram of NetBSD development from a little while
> back up to the current point:
> 
> 
> 	----*----1.2A----*---1.3A---...---1.3I
> 	    |            |
> 	   1.2		1.3
> 	    |            |
> 	   1.2.1        1.3.1
> 	                 |
> 	                1.3.2
> 
> The horizontal line across the top is called "the mainline".  If at
> any point you snapshot the mainline, you'll get a NetBSD with a
> version number with a letter at the end, like 1.3H.  The "1.3" part
> signifies the last major or minor release, and letter changes indicate
> when kernel interfaces have changed.
> 
> The vertical are release branches.  Prior to a major or minor release,
> we create a branch in the repository.  Development continues unabated
> on the mainline--the VM system gets replaced, BIND takes a major
> version upgrade, whatever--but on the release branch we mostly just
> fix bugs, hopefully in well understood and tested ways.
> 
> 1.3.3 is a release off the 1.3 branch.  It doesn't have UVM or wscons
> or RAIDframe or any of the other cool but not really ready changes
> we've done since the 1.3 release branch was created.  It just has bug
> fixes, and new drivers, and stuff like that.  (And a partition ID
> change in the i386 port and a new XFree release.  I'm not too fond of
> the partition ID change, but then I don't contribute much, so nobody
> consulted me.)
> 
> 1.4 will be a release based on a new release branch which doesn't
> exist yet, but will have all the cool stuff currently on the mainline
> (which you currently know of as 1.3I).
> 
> Nobody knows what will trigger the fabled major version bump, because
> nobody's made that decision.  There's some speculation that a
> preemptible kernel with SMP support is the critical change.
>