410.xx/418.xx - both claim to be the "long-lived" branch, shouldn't 418.xx be the "short-lived" branch?

410.104: https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1047709
418.43: https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1047710

Maybe I’m being a little thick, but how can both be the “long-lived branch”?

It would appear from the above link that 418.43 is the progression from 415.27, but 415.xx had been the short-lived branch, so shouldn’t 418.43 be a release from the short-lived branch (now based on 418.xx)? And 410.xx continues to be the long-lived branch?

Also, 410.104 isn’t listed at all on the Unix download page, it lists 415.27 (short-lived) AND 418.43 (long-lived).

Can someone clarify? Thanks!

Is this Highlander? Why shouldn’t be there more than one long living branches?

Perhaps because it’s confusing? I mean, why bother giving branches a distinct purpose if they’re going to be called the same thing so you can’t tell one from the other, apart from the version?

Also, the short-lived branch has gone AWOL from the announcement post where it is no longer listed, so this just looks like a SNAFU and 418.43 is in fact the short-lived release not long-lived (which is 410.104 and also missing from announcement post).

lol, of course it’s confusing because it’s following an inner business logic. Officially, nvidia is not telling about the time frame of ‘long lived’ or ‘short lived’ or whatever driver versions. There’s an official forum post about this somewhere here. About that they’re not telling anything. OTOH though, they told (also in this forum) that extended driver lifetime can be achieved through paid support under nda. So my guess would be that some company paid for this resulting in now having two long lived branches. (The 384 driver also lived longer than expected)
Telling by the communication mess around Fermi going legacy most people internal to nvidia don’t know any better than you and me.

What is so hard to understand?, 418 was a ‘long-lived’ beta.

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/533434/linux/current-graphics-driver-releases/post/5312344/#5312344

And it was promoted to ‘long-lived’ stable

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/533434/linux/current-graphics-driver-releases/post/3751724/#3751724

I don’t see any mention of 410!

If 418 has been “promoted” to long-lived status then what does this mean for the existing long-lived 410 branch which seems to be continuing, which is confusing. Why have 2 long-lived branches?

And why has the short-lived branch disappeared from the current driver summary post, and the newly released 410.104 long-lived driver is not listed?

There may be a rational reason for all of this. Or it’s an announcement cockup - this wouldn’t be the first time that releases have been categorised incorrectly, hence my scepticism.