What is the difference between Spring's GA, RC and M2 releases?

Question

Spring\'s 3.0 version is now GA release, before that they have launched 3.0 RC1, RC2 version Also, there was Spring 3.0

Answer 1

GA = General availability (a release); should be very stable and feature complete

RC = Release candidate; probably feature complete and should be pretty stable - problems should be relatively rare and minor, but worth reporting to try to get them fixed for release.

M = Milestone build - probably not feature complete; should be vaguely stable (i.e. it's more than just a nightly snapshot) but may still have problems.

SR = Service Release (subsequent maintenance releases that come after major -RELEASE).