# FreeBSD 10.4 release date



## CyberCr33p (Oct 1, 2016)

Any idea how close we are to FreeBSD 10.4 release date?


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## gkontos (Oct 1, 2016)

Very far...... You should except a 9.4-RELEASE first, if it ever happens.


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## ANOKNUSA (Oct 1, 2016)

As far as I know, there is no 10.4 and there never will be. 10.3 is supported through 2017, and 10-STABLE will be supported for another year after that. I don't have time to dig up the link to the announcement at the moment, but as of now the new release and support scheme is in effect. Basically, three minor releases per major release, with *-STABLE supported for two years after the final major release comes out. So if I'm remembering this correctly, 10.3 will be the last *.3-RELEASE, nevermind 10.4.


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## Remington (Oct 1, 2016)

Doubtful we'll see 10.4 unless if there are serious bugs to be fixed.  Now the focus is fixing bugs in FreeBSD 11 and adding new features in FreeBSD 12 including, hopefully, LibreSSL in the base system.


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## Phishfry (Oct 1, 2016)

I was wondering the same thing. I see the term extended release used but unsure what it means.

Strange that here they call the x.1 an extended release version. I would think only the x.4 branch would be.
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/43738/

I had assumed it was a major version branch that was extended with a x.4 release.

I thought I had read 1 extended release version to every two regular ones. (ie. 8 was extended and 9,10 were regular and 11 should be extended)


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## Phishfry (Oct 1, 2016)

I see my error the handbook says this about extended releases:
"normally every second release plus the last release from each"
I was assuming this to mean major releases, now I see now it means all releases.


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## gkontos (Oct 1, 2016)

Since the release of 6.0 we have seen always a X.4-RELEASE as legacy with extended support. I don't know if this will remain. It is always hard to maintain 3 different branches.


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## SirDice (Oct 3, 2016)

The 'old' schedule used odd numbers for 'extended' support and the even numbers for 'normal' support. Notable exception was the last minor release of a major branch, those have 'extended' support.

.0 supported until release of .1
.1 2 year 'extended' support
.2 1 year 'normal' support
.3 2 year 'extended' support
etc.

There will not be a 9.4-RELEASE as the whole 9 major version will be End-of-Life at the end of this year. There may be a 10.4-RELEASE but the current focus is on 11.0-RELEASE. If there will be a 10.4 it will be around 6 months after 11.0-RELEASE.

As far as I know the schedule is going to change with 11.0-RELEASE.


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## gkontos (Oct 3, 2016)

SirDice said:


> There will not be a 9.4-RELEASE as the whole 9 major version will be End-of-Life at the end of this year.



Then why is 9-STABLE still active?


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## SirDice (Oct 3, 2016)

Even 6-STABLE is still active. That doesn't mean it's supported though.


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## kpa (Oct 3, 2016)

The old stable versions are still active because some of the developers need them for their personal use and you often see them updated with things like timezone changes and minor bugfixes.


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## SirDice (Oct 3, 2016)

Well, 9-STABLE is marked to be EoL at the end of this year: https://www.freebsd.org/security/security.html#sup

And if you look at the previous versions, 8-STABLE went EoL at the same time as 8.4-RELEASE, 7-STABLE was EoL at the same time as 7.4-RELEASE, etc.

This simply means there will never be a 9.4-RELEASE.


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## gkontos (Oct 3, 2016)

I just read the announcement...


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## da1 (Oct 5, 2016)

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-announce/2015-February/001624.html might be of interest.


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## SirDice (Oct 5, 2016)

Important to note:


> These changes are planned to become effective with FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE, which is still a number of months away.
> 
> FreeBSD releases from earlier branches will continue to be supported in accordance with the policy that was in effect at the time they were released.


So 9.x and 10.x will still follow the 'old' schedule.


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## gkontos (Oct 5, 2016)

I think you all did not read the correct announcement -> https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-announce/2016-October/001754.html


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## SirDice (Oct 5, 2016)

Nothing contradictory, 10.3 follows the 'old' schedule and will have 2 years 'extended' support.


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## gkontos (Oct 5, 2016)

SirDice said:


> Nothing contradictory, 10.3 follows the 'old' schedule and will have 2 years 'extended' support.



No 9.4-RELEASE


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## ANOKNUSA (Oct 6, 2016)

gkontos said:


> No 9.4-RELEASE



But 10.3 is still being treated as an old-style "extended release," with the same general lifetime. Which is great; people ought to upgrade to 10.3 as soon as possible (they should have already, really), and once they do they'll have plenty of time to sort out their upgrade to FreeBSD 11. By the time 10.3 reaches EOL, it will have been three years since the core team announced the new support schedule. Granted, it will have been under 5 years since 10.0 came out but there's always going to be some hang-ups with a major change like this. Adding a bunch of minor releases to older branches and dragging things out longer seems pretty arbitrary, especially when the point is to not do that anymore.


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## chrcol (Nov 4, 2016)

I am confused, in that announcement 5 years was mentioned, but if 10.3 is the last from the 10 branch then FreeBSD 10 will have only had 4.5 years support.


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## kpa (Nov 4, 2016)

The five years support time doesn't apply to 10.X, only to 11.X and following major versions.


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## angus71 (Aug 25, 2017)

Well...I'm sure you all have seen this one: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.4R/schedule.html ...  cheers!


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## CyberCr33p (Aug 25, 2017)

Yes I run 10.3-STABLE (few months old) at the moment and wait for 10.4


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## bgrant (May 28, 2018)

I'm struggling to understand why 10.4 which is under the previous release strategy and announced as the last release for the 10 series is not an extended release.  All final releases in that release strategy were extended by definition.

(The reason it is important for me is the dropped asr support in 11 which obsoletes my hardware sooner that I would have expected)


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## SirDice (May 28, 2018)

bgrant said:


> I'm struggling to understand why 10.4 which is under the previous release strategy and announced as the last release for the 10 series is not an extended release.


I'm guessing because it's not "officially" marked as the last of the 10.x branch. I do expect it to be the last one though. One of the reasons for the new support schedule was because they didn't want to have to support a plethora of versions. As 12.0 is expected to be released somewhere at the end of this year I don't think there will be room for a 10.5 release.


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## Minbari (May 28, 2018)

SirDice said:


> As 12.0 is expected to be released somewhere at the end of this year I don't think there will be room for a 10.5 release.



We'll never know, they did it with the fourth release 4.0->4.11, so anything is possible.


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## SirDice (May 28, 2018)

Minbari said:


> We'll never know, they did it with the fourth release 4.0->4.11, so anything is possible.


I think that was mainly because 5.0 took so long 

But, that said, if there's enough people willing to support it we may actually see a 10.5 release. I suspect because there's no official verdict yet it isn't sure 10.4 is the last one, so it's still listed as 'normal' (12 month) support.


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