Today the start of the FreeBSD 6.2 release cycle was announced by Ken Smith:

FYI - we have begun the release cycle for FreeBSD-6.2. Code freeze on the RELENG_6 branch started last week. For people in the habit of tracking RELENG_6 you will start to notice various pieces of it that start saying “6.2” for version numbers (despite 6.2 not being officially released) as we progress through the release cycle. Sorry if that causes a bit of confusion or problems but we need to do this as part of the BETA/RC testing that gets done. Bumping things like the FreeBSD_version to reflect 6.2 now gives the ports folks a chance to get ready for it as part of their preparations for the release, etc. The current targets for the BETAs/RCs/Release are: BETA1 Sep. 17 BETA2 Oct. 1 RC1 Oct. 15 RC2 Oct. 29 RELEASE Nov. 13 We’ll give a bit more information along with the BETA1 announcement.

Notable about this message is how Ken Smith has stressed that this is just the start of the release process despite the fact that most version numbers already sport a 6.2 tag. Apparently there are more FreeBSD users out there who have not passed through a release cycle or are not familiar with such a formal procedure. Welcome, new users!