PECL will always prioritizes the latest release over any stability preferences. For example, 1.7.5 was released after 1.8.0beta2, which means our previous example of pecl install mongodb-beta in the 1.8.0beta2 release notes will eventually prefer 1.7.5.

I found no way to override this behavior, as "mongodb-beta" is equivalent to specifying a preferred_state in the PEAR/PECL config (as discussed in the PECL install docs).

To work around this, we should always include the explicit version in the release notes' PECL example.