Releases
Releases are builds that have been declared major releases by
the development team - for example "R1.0". Releases
are the right builds for people who want to be on a stable,
tested release, and don't need the latest greatest features
and improvements. Release builds always have an "R"
at the beginning of the name i.e. R1.0, R2.0 etc. Non-release
builds
are named according to the date of the build - for example
20011027 is the build from Oct 27, 2001.
Stable builds are integration builds that have been found to be stable enough for most people to use. They are promoted from integration build to stable build by the architecture team after they have been used for a few days and deemed reasonably stable. The latest stable build is the right build for people who want to stay up to date with what is going on in the latest development stream, and don't mind putting up with a few problems n in order to get the latest greatest features and bug fixes. The latest stable build is the one the development team likes people to be using, because of the valuable and timely feedback.
Integration
Builds
Periodically,
component teams version off their work in what they believe
is a stable, consistent state, and they update the build
configuration to indicate that the next integration build
should take this version of the component. Integration
builds are built from these stable component versions that
have been specified by each component team as the best
version available. Integration builds may be promoted to
stable builds after a few days of testing. Integration
builds are built whenever new stable component versions are
released into the build.
Maintenance builds are produced periodically to incorporate fixes into an existing release. They are typically built from tagged plug-in and feature pojects in a maintenance branch of the Git repository (i.e. R3_7_maintenance). Maintenance builds are promoted to a minor or service release (i.e. R3.7 or R3.7.1) after development teams have deemed one to be stable following one or more test-fix pass cycles.
Patch builds are produced rarely, but occasionally, to incorporate important fixes into an existing release, or perhaps even new features. They are intended to apply to only one specific release with the fixes or features being included in the next release.