freetds-stable.tgz is a symbolic link to the current stable version. It is updated wheneveer a new version is released. The .gz and .bz2 files have identical content. The file you receive should have an md5 fingerprint matching the corresponding md5 file in this directory. freetds-patched.tgz Patches to the release are currently suspended, pending an upgrade to the patch-release process. The new system will automatically generate patch releases as numbered versions for the convenience of deveopers and port maintainers.