[TYPO3-core] Proposal for the upcoming Roadmap and LTS

[Ernesto Baschny]

Benjamin Mack schrieb am 06.10.2012 16:05:

> We want to make the following suggestion:
> 
> 1) We really want to stay in the 6-month-release cycle

+1

> 2) We want another LTS version

+1

> 3) Maintenance lifetime

>  * Currently we support every release for 18 months, except the LTS.
> This results in maintaining 4 to 5 versions at a time, which is a lot of
> work for the Release Teams.

Actually only maximum of 4, but still a lot.

>  * Therefore we suggest to only support the latest stable release and
> its predecessor, starting with the release of 6.0 - which means approx.
> 12 months for each version

Makes sense, no "old old stable" anymore. :)

>  * There would be no change to the LTS maintenance lifetime (3 years).

+1

>  * The current stable release would get as much bug fixes as possible
> (same as right now)
>  * Other releases (predecessor, LTS) = get important and security fixes
> (similar to how we deal with 4.5 right now)

According to our experience with 4.5 LTS and the expectation rised in
this thread I split up this maintainance of the LTS in two periods:

* 2 years of full support (bugfixes / backported bugfixes + security).
* 1 year of security fixes and "browser fixes" (making sure the LTS
still works on current browser technologies): no more backported fixes
other kind of fixes.

Actually we are almost reaching this kind of first phase "stability"
with 4.5, as I feel it.

> 4) We don't see the need for defining 7.0 version - yet!
>  * We want to embrace 6.x just as we embraced and developed 4.x further.
>  * We want stable and consistent 6.x versions to focus on
> backwards-compatibility, maintenance and a high-quality product.
>  * If it makes sense after a couple of releases to make breaking changes
> or add large features, we are still able to raise the version number to
> 7.0, but this is not the case yet :)

+1

> As a result, we propose the following schedule for the next versions:
> 
> TYPO3 6.0
>  * originally scheduled for October 2012, now postponed to November 2012
>  * having all the goodies in there (Namespaces, FAL)
> 
> TYPO3 6.1
>  * Release in April 2013 (just 5 months to keep up with the release cycle)
>  * It is just before T3DD13, to open up development for 6.2
> 
> TYPO3 6.2
>  * Release in October 2013
>  * Marked as the LTS version, supported until October 2016.
> 
> TYPO3 6.3
>  * Roughly scheduled for April 2014

I would not include "6.3" in any schedule yet.

> Please think about it and tell us if you can agree with it via "+1/-1".
> If you disagree, also tell us why, so we can try to improve the proposal.

An important question rised in this thread and not answered by the
initial proposal is: when will the new LTS be released?

6.2 could be a candidate (Oct/2013), but the argument of little overlap
(6 months) with the current 4.5 LTS maintainance can be important. On
the other hand we would have more time to focus on "getting the 6.x
branch" rocket stable and even more in line with the TYPO3 Neos / Flow
development.

6.1 could be a candidate (Apr/2013), which would fit quite well in the
maintainence strategy for for LTS: As soon as a new LTS is released, the
old LTS goes into "old-LTS-mode" (only sec+important fixes) for a
further year (of overlap).

Regardless if the LTS is 6.1 or 6.2, starting Oct/2013 we will only be
maintaining 3 releases at a time.

Considering that 6.1 development will start very soon, a decision needs
to be made at that time (together with the new release manager...). :)


Cheers,
Ernesto

-- 
Ernesto Baschny
Core Developer V4 Team
Release Manager TYPO3 4.5

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