- alpha
early stages of development, all things could change (API,
behavoir) without notice, expect lots of bugs
- beta
API should normally not change, usable software, expect bugs
- devel
a release for other developers who want early access to test
and give feedback, code quality may vary from pre-alpha to
stable
- stable
the software was tested, the API fixed, the documentation
wrote and is the recommended release for users and
production enviroments
- snapshot
a CVS snapshot from a certain date
- devel
package is in "bottoms up development", anything may change