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<p>Support of FreeBSD releases by ports and the ports infrastructure
  matches the <a href="&base;/security/#sup">policies
  set out by the FreeBSD Security Officer</a>.  Once a major branch X
  reaches its EOL date, the "last known good" ports tree will be tagged
  with the <tt>RELEASE_X_EOL</tt> tag as a convenience to those
  remaining users who intend to self-support their installations.
  This tag is not supported in any way and security fixes will not be
  applied.  Usage is therefore highly discouraged and should only be
  used as a last resort.</p>

<p>For all supported major src branches, all ports will be included in
  an automated quality assurance procedure which will build, install,
  package, and deinstall each port on all <a
  href="&base;/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/committers-guide/archs.html#AEN1259">
  Tier 1 platforms</a>.  Maintainers and committers are notified of
  failures detected during testing.  Ports that are known not to build
  or run on a given supported branch or platform will be marked as
  such.</p>

<p>Prebuilt binary packages will also be provided for all major branches
  and Tier 1 platforms and will be made available via anonymous FTP
  from <a
  href="&base;/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors-ftp.html">
  a worldwide set of mirror sites</a>.  Package builds will use the
  oldest supported minor release within each major branch to ensure
  ABI and KBI backwards compatibility within each major branch, and
  support all minor versions of each major branch, including
  <tt>-RELEASE</tt> and <tt>-STABLE</tt>.</p>

<p>The current package sets and estimated lifetimes of the currently
  supported branches are given below.  The <em>Estimated EoL
  (end-of-life)</em> column gives the earliest date on which that
  branch is likely to be dropped.</p>

<table class="tblbasic">
  <tr>
    <th>Branch</th>
    <th>Release</th>
    <th>Package Branch</th>
    <th>Package Set</th>
    <th>Estimated EoL</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>RELENG_7</td>
    <td>n/a</td>
    <td>RELENG_7_3</td>
    <td>packages-7-stable</td>
    <td>February 28, 2013</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>RELENG_7_3</td>
    <td>7.3-RELEASE</td>
    <td>RELENG_7_3</td>
    <td>packages-7-stable</td>
    <td>March 31, 2012</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>RELENG_7_4</td>
    <td>7.4-RELEASE</td>
    <td>RELENG_7_3</td>
    <td>packages-7-stable</td>
    <td>February 28, 2013</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>RELENG_8</td>
    <td>n/a</td>
    <td>RELENG_8_1</td>
    <td>packages-8-stable</td>
    <td>last release + 2 years</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td>RELENG_8_1</td>
     <td>8.1-RELEASE</td>
     <td>RELENG_8_1</td>
     <td>packages-8-stable</td>
     <td>July 31, 2012</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td>RELENG_8_2</td>
     <td>8.2-RELEASE</td>
     <td>RELENG_8_1</td>
     <td>packages-8-stable</td>
     <td>February 29, 2012</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td>HEAD</td>
     <td>n/a</td>
     <td>HEAD</td>
     <td>packages-9-current</td>
     <td>Best Effort</td>
   </tr>
 </table>

<p>Older releases are not maintained, ports and packages may not be able
  to install or run.  Users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to one of
  the supported releases mentioned above.</p>

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