Given the increasing popularity of running
-current snapshots (most likely motivated in part by Firefox's frequent version updates...) by the entire community, the following thread on
misc@ today caught my eye as giving a bit of perspective as what
actually comprises snapshots:
http://marc.info/?t=134015093800001&r=1&w=2
For those who read this thread, the latter comments especially that made by Theo will be of interest to
all snapshot consumers.
In a nutshell, it has been known for quite some time that some snapshots may contain additional code which has
not been committed to the project's CVS repository. This is done so newly developed code can be made accessible to larger audiences for testing. Not all snapshots have additional code integrated, & two successive snapshots may contain completely different additions, or none at all. Theo coordinates these changes
(as indicated by the thread...), & information on their availability is communicated in the project-only developer mailing lists. The general community does not have access to this information.
So for those that live by snapshots, note the thread's warning about when snapshots
might be the least stable. And of course, reading
misc@ for information on current development trends, issues, & commentary provides perspective. Seasoned snapshot users should be reading
misc@ on a frequent basis anyways.
Finally, for those that don't want to run uncommitted code, but still want to run
-current (hopefully) for tangible reasoned reasons, read
Section 5 of the FAQ paying attention to the table provided in
Section 5.3.2. If one wants support on self-built copies of
-current, the procedure specified in the FAQ along with additional information found in the
release(8) manpage is the
only supported method for doing it yourself.