Last updated: Thu Mar 15 17:08:07 CST 2007

FreeBSD release milestones

Here is some unofficial data about the FreeBSD release milestones: by date; by elapsed time in days; by elapsed time in days. by development percentage

by date

release number src freeze src tag ports freeze ports tag release date EOL
3.4     12/10/1999 around 12/15/1999 12/21/1999  
4.0     before 03/11/2000 03/11/2000 03/14/2000  
3.5       06/16/2000 06/25/2000  
4.1     before 07/19/2000 07/19/2000 07/27/2000  
4.2     before 11/17/2000 11/17/2000 11/21/2000  
4.3     before 04/17/2001 04/17/2001 04/21/2001  
4.4     before 09/13/2001 09/13/2001 09/19/2001  
4.5     01/22/2002 01/23/2002 01/29/2002 01/07/2003
5.0-DP1     04/02/2002 04/02/2002 04/08/2002  
4.6     06/25/2002 05/25/2002 06/15/2002 05/31/2003
4.7     09/21/2002 10/02/2002 10/10/2002 12/31/2003
5.0-DP2         11/18/2002  
5.0 11/18/2002 01/16/2003 01/01/2003 01/01/2003 01/20/2003 06/30/2003
4.8 02/15/2003 03/23/2003 03/06/2003 03/22/2003 04/03/2003 03/31/2005
5.1 05/05/2003 06/04/2003 05/22/2003 05/31/2003 06/09/2003 03/01/2004
4.9 08/25/2003 10/22/2003 09/10/2003 09/24/2003 10/29/2003 10/31/2004
5.2 11/18/2003 01/01/2004 11/19/2003 12/04/2003 01/12/2004  
5.2.1         02/25/2004 12/31/2004
4.10 04/07/2004 05/25/2004 04/20/2004 04/28/2004 05/26/2004 05/31/2006
5.3 08/16/2004 10/16/2004 09/03/2004 10/11/2004 11/06/2004 10/31/2006
4.11 12/13/2004 12/17/2004 12/31/2004 01/08/2005 01/25/2005 01/31/2007
5.4 03/03/2005 04/03/2005 03/21/2005 04/02/2005 05/09/2005 10/31/2006
6.0 06/10/2005 10/09/2005 08/01/2005 08/28/2005 11/04/2005 01/31/2007
5.5 01/31/2006 05/22/2006 02/23/2006 03/14/2006 05/25/2006 (proposed) 05/31/2008
6.1 01/31/2006 after 04/05/2006 02/23/2006 03/14/2006 05/08/2006 05/31/2008
6.2     10/10/2006 10/29/2006 01/15/2007 (proposed) 01/31/2008
7.0 (guess) 07/01/2007       (guess) 09/02/2007 (guess) 09/01/2008
6.3 (guess) 09/07/2007       (guess) 10/06/2007 (guess) 10/05/2008

by elapsed time in days

release number src freeze-tag src tag-release src total ports freeze-tag ports tag-release ports total
5.0 59 4 63 0? 19 19
4.8 36 11 47 16 12 28
5.1 30 5 35 9 10 19
4.9 57 7 64 14 35 49
5.2 44 11 55 15 39 54
4.10 49 1 50 8 29 37
5.3 61 20 81 38 25 63
4.11 4 39 43 9 17 26
5.4 31 36 67 12 38 50
6.0 122 27 149 18 67 85
average (all)     66     43
average (5.0/5.3/6.0)     98     56
average (all others)     52     38

by development percentage (assuming 180 days between major releases)

# minor releases src % ports %
4 56% 42%
3 46% 33%
2 37% 26%

Sources:

historical FreeBSD release data
the next pending release (currently under discussion)
EOL/support data
src tagging ; param.h
ports tagging
personal email archives

Notes:

"EOL" means "End-Of-Life", after which time the Security Team will no longer support the release. Individual commiters, both from the src and ports teams, will most likely have dropped support before that time.

"after" means "happened sometime after", "before" means "happened sometime before.

"proposed" means a date that has been publicly announced in one of the above references, but is subject to change.

"imputed" means that I have extrapolated a date from the following rough guides:

future release dates

release type scheduled date
major (.0) release 18 months from prior major release date
minor (.X) release 4 months from prior minor release date

future support EOL dates

release type release number EOL
early adopter TBA 6 months from release date
normal X.0 12 months from release date
extended X.1 24 months from release date
  X.Y alternating 12/24 months thereafter

Author: Mark Linimon (linimon at FreeBSD.org)