<listitem><para>A lower-case string (no spaces or other characters outside of 0-9, a-z, ".",
"_", and "-"), describing what kind of release this version of the OS is. Known values follow:
- <literal>stable</literal> is for normal releases of the system, suitable for production use.
- Generally, stable releases become end-of-life soon after the next major stable release is out.
- Examples include Fedora 40, Ubuntu 23.10, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, and Arch Linux.
- <literal>lts</literal> is for long term support releases of the system, suitable for production
- use and supported for an extended period of time. Generally, LTS releases continue to recieve
- support even if newer major releases of the distribution are available. Examples include Ubuntu
- 24.04, Debian 12 Bookworm and RHEL 9.4.
- <literal>development</literal> is for unstable versions of the system, unsuitable for production
- use, such as alpha, beta, or rolling unstable releases. Examples include Fedora Rawhide, Debian
- Testing, Fedora 40 Beta, and GNOME OS Nightly.
- <literal>experiment</literal> is for experimental builds of the system, created specifically to
- test some work-in-progress feature. This is meant to be used in combination with <varname>EXPERIMENT=</varname>.
- If unset, or an unknown value, assume that the release is <literal>stable</literal>.</para>
+ </para>
+
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <listitem><para><literal>stable</literal> is for normal releases of the system, suitable for
+ production use. Generally, stable releases become end-of-life soon after the next major stable
+ release is out, although this might not be the case if, for example, a distribution adopts a
+ rolling release model and still be production ready. Examples include Fedora 40, Ubuntu 23.10,
+ OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, and Arch Linux.</para></listitem>
+
+ <listitem><para><literal>lts</literal> is for long term support releases of the system, suitable
+ for production use and supported for an extended period of time. Generally, LTS releases
+ continue to recieve support even if newer major releases of the distribution are available.
+ Examples include Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 12 Bookworm and RHEL 9.4.</para></listitem>
+
+ <listitem><para><literal>development</literal> is for unstable versions of the system,
+ unsuitable for production use, such as alpha, beta, or rolling unstable releases. Examples
+ include Fedora Rawhide, Debian Testing, Fedora 40 Beta, and GNOME OS Nightly.</para></listitem>
+
+ <listitem><para><literal>experiment</literal> is for experimental builds of the system, created
+ specifically to test some work-in-progress feature. This is meant to be used in combination with
+ <varname>EXPERIMENT=</varname>.</para></listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
+
+ <para>If unset, or an unknown value, assume that the release is <literal>stable</literal>.</para>
<para>Examples: <literal>RELEASE_TYPE=development</literal>, <literal>RELEASE_TYPE=lts</literal>.
</para>