Last updated: Wed Jan 18 13:29:52 CST 2012

FreeBSD release milestones

Here are some unofficial data about the FreeBSD release milestones:

by date (mm/dd/yyyy)

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 12/20/2001 01/27/2002 01/22/2002 01/23/2002 01/29/2002 01/07/2003
5.0-DP1 04/02/2002 04/08/2002 N/A
4.6 05/01/2002 06/10/2002 06/25/2002 05/25/2002 06/15/2002 05/31/2003
4.7 09/02/2002 10/06/2002 09/21/2002 10/02/2002 10/10/2002 12/31/2003
5.0-DP2         11/18/2002 N/A
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 N/A
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 05/31/2008
6.1 01/31/2006 05/07/2006 02/23/2006 03/14/2006 05/08/2006 05/31/2008
6.2 09/10/2006 01/11/2007 10/10/2006 10/29/2006 01/15/2007 05/31/2008
7.0 07/19/2007 10/11/2007 10/30/2007 12/11/2007 02/17/2008 04/30/2009
6.3 11/18/2007 12/07/2007 ? 10/30/2007 12/11/2007 01/18/2008 01/31/2010
6.4 09/02/2008 10/02/2008 09/08/2008 09/22/2008 11/28/2008 11/30/2010
7.1 09/02/2008 11/25/2008 09/08/2008 09/22/2008 01/04/2009 02/28/2011
7.2 03/23/2009 (branch) 04/15/2009 04/13/2009 04/21/2009 05/04/2009 06/30/2010
8.0 06/27/2009 (branch) 08/03/2009 08/23/2009 09/30/2009 11/25/2009 11/30/2010
7.3 01/23/2010 02/22/2010 02/15/2010 03/06/2010 03/23/2010 (estimated) 03/31/2012
8.1 05/25/2010 06/17/2010 06/18/2010 07/08/2010 07/23/2010 (estimated) 07/31/2012
7.4 11/29/2010 12/26/2010 01/11/2011 02/08/2011 02/24/2011 (estimated) 02/28/2013
8.2 (estimated) 07/31/2012
9.0 09/23/2011 11/11/2011 11/10/2011 12/12/2011 01/10/2012 (estimated) 01/21/13
release number src freeze src tag ports freeze ports tag release date EOL

Sources:

official EOL/support data
historical FreeBSD release data
src tagging ; src branching ; 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

Finally, up to but not including 8.0, "ports freeze" was a hard freeze (CVS tree locked). As of 8.0, it became a "feature freeze" that requires committers to certify that "no sweeping change is involved", to break the lockstep where src slippage locked out ports updates.

Author: Mark Linimon (linimon at FreeBSD.org)