Samba Release Planning

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Revision as of 09:52, 2 October 2013 by Kseeger (talk | contribs)

The regular Samba release cycle intends a new release series every nine month. Each release series then enters into maintenance mode when the next major release version (4.x.0) comes out as the new current stable release series. For your convenience, the next to last series will be turned into a security fixes only mode.

That means, a series is

  • nine months fully supported,
  • another nine months in the maintenance mode,
  • nine months in the security fixes only mode.

In total, each series is maintained for a period of approximately 27 months.

Example:

If 4.0 is the current release series, then 3.6 would be in maintenance mode, 3.5 would be in the security fixes only mode, and finally the support of 3.4 would be stopped with the release of 4.0.0.

Each series can have any number of desired minor release. These will be released usually every 6 weeks.

series status started maintenance security discontinued
4.1 (details) new upcoming release series
4.0 (details) current series 2012-12-11
3.6 (details) maintenance mode 2011-08-09
3.5 (details) security fixes only 2010-03-01 ~2012-12-17
3.4 (details) discontinued 2009-07-03 ~2011-08-23 2012-12-11
3.3 (details) discontinued 2009-01-27 2010-03-01 2011-08-09
3.2 (details) discontinued 2008-07-02 2009-08-11 2010-03-01
3.0 (details) discontinued 2009-08-05


For details on the release branches, please see Branch Policy.

Modes

The mode describes the status of the release series. The following modes exist

  • current stable release
  • maintenance mode
  • security fixes only mode

Upcoming Release

This is the new upcoming release branch. It's not ready for production. Release candidates might be available for testing.

Current Stable Release

This is the current release branch. Available bug fixes will be included in the regular bug fix releases. Bug fix releases will be shipped every six weeks usually (and on a as needed basis). New features or parameters will be added to major releases only and not within a release cycle (there might be rare exceptions).

Maintenance Mode

Maintenance mode means that there are regular bug fix releases to address major issues and security issues. Less patches are backported to this branch than to the current release series.

Security Fixes Only Mode

Only security issues will be addressed in this release series.