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2011-08-12   An important note from DirectFB.org regarding release cycles

We got a lot of negative feedback regarding our current release policy. Too many changes in minor releases, non-forseeable changes in both 1.4.x and 1.5.x branches.

We thought about that and came to the following conclusion: You are right.

So how can we solve the problem?

We decided that it is best to adopt a time-based release schedule, like many projects already did. (GNOME, Ubuntu, etc). The last three major releases will receive critical fixes, but we will try to keep the changes minimal. That way, users of DirectFB building a product can update to minor releases without the fear of breaking things or making custom changes hard to port to a new minor release.

We will also start to release -pre releases for testing, which will be open for major core and API changes.

We also plan to integrate more packages (e.g. SaWMan) into the main DirectFB tree, to make sure that each major release comes with a SaWMan that is feature-frozen and fits best.

All these measures are meant to make DirectFB releases feel more finished and easier to adopt.

So what will happen next?

  • The 1.4.x branch will get frozen after the 1.4.15 release but will still receive bug fixes
  • The next release of the 1.5.x branch will be 1.6-pre1
  • The release of 1.6.0 is planned for end of November 2011
  • 1.7.0-pre will be opened with the 1.6.0 release
  • During the freezing phase of 1.6.0 any development would need to take place in a branch and merged into trunk when 1.7.0-pre is opened

We hope you agree to our new policy and apologise for the inconvenience caused by some volatile releases in the past.

DirectFB

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