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* `Bazaar Developer Document Catalog <index.html>`_
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* `Releasing Bazaar <releasing.html>`_ -- the process for actually making
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* `Releasing Bazaar <releasing.html>`_ -- the process for actually making
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a release or release candidate.
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Bazaar makes a release every month, preceded by a one-week
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release-candidate test.
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In any release we may fix bugs, add formats, change the default format,
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improve performance, add new commands or change command line behaviour,
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change the network protocol, or deprecate APIs. We sometimes also
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introduce new bugs, regress existing behaviour or performance, remove
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existing features or formats, or break behaviour or APIs depended upon by
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plugins, external programs or users.
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Some users are happy upgrading every month and consider the overall
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positive balance of changes is worth some amount of churn. But there are
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some serious problems:
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* You cannot get bug fixes without also getting disruptive changes.
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* Bazaar is seen as unstable.
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* Many releases cause some plugin breakage.
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* One month is not a very long window for dependent programs or systems
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to catch up to changes in Bazaar before the release goes out of date.
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* There's no clear indication to distributions which version they should
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* If people (or their distributions) just pick an arbitrary version, they
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may all be on different arbitrary versions, therefore they will have
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different behaviour and different bugs, and sometimes interoperation
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* Any effort we, or distributors, wanted to put into backporting fixes
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would be dissipated across many possible backport target releases.
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* When in the past we've tried either stalling releases for particular
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features, or having trunk frozen for some weeks, it causes churn and
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waste. People rush features in, or already landed features wait a long
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time to be released, or branches go out of date because they cannot
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2.0.0 --- 2.0.1 -- 2.0.2 -- ...
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2.0 --- 2.0.1 -- 2.0.2 -- ...
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+--2.1.0beta1 -- 2.1.0beta2 -- ... -- 2.1.0rc1 -- 2.1.0 -- 2.1.1 -- ...
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Starting from the date of a major release:
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+--2.1beta1 -- 2.1beta2 -- ... -- 2.1rc1 -- 2.1 -- 2.1.1 -- ...
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Starting from the date of a major release:
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At four-week intervals we make a new beta release. There will be no
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separate release candidate, but if a serious problem is discovered we may
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We will then make a release candidate for the next major release, and at
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this point create a release branch for it. We will iterate release
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candidates at approximately weekly intervals until there are no bugs
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blocking the final major release.
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blocking the final major release.
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Compared to the current process this has approximately the same amount of
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release-related work, because the extra releases from the stable branch
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The number for a six-month cycle is chosen at the start, with an increment
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to either the first field (3.0.0) or second field (3.1.0) depending on
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what we expect to be the user impact of the release. We expect releases
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that culminate in a new disk format or that require changes in how people
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use the tool will get a new major number. We can change (forward only) if
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it turns out that we land larger changes than were expected.
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We will always use the 3-digit form (major.minor.micro) even when
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referring to the initial major release. This should help clarify where a
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patch is intended to land. (eg, "I propose this for 2.0.0" is clear, while
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"I propose this for 2.0" could mean you want to make the 2.0.0 release, or
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that you just want to land on the 2.0.x stable release series.)
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to either the first field (3.0) or second field (3.1) depending on what we
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expect to be the user impact of the release. We expect releases that
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culminate in a new disk format or that require changes in how people use
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the tool will get a new major number. We can change (forward only) if it
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turns out that we land larger changes than were expected.
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Major releases (2.0.0 or 2.1.0)
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Major releases (2.0 or 2.1)
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The big ones, every six months, intended to ship in distributions and
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to be used by stability-oriented users.
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Release candidate (2.0.0rc1)
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Release candidate (2.0rc1)
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A preview of a major release, made one or a few weeks beforehand at
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the time the release branch is created. There should be few if any
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changes from the rc to the stable release. We should avoid the
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confusing phrasing "release candidate 2.0.0rc1 is released"; instead
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confusing phrasing "release candidate 2.0rc1 is released"; instead use
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Bugfix releases (2.0.1)
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Based on the previous major release or bugfix; contains only bugfixes
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Either a major release or a bugfix release.
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Beta release (3.0.0beta1)
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Beta release (3.0beta1)
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Made from trunk every month, except for the month there's a major
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release. Stable and suitable for users who want the latest code and
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can live with some changes from month to month.
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Bug fixes should normally be done first against the stable branch,
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Bug fixes should normally be done first against the stable branch,
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reviewed against that branch, and then merged forward to trunk.
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It may not always be easy to do this, if fixing the bug requires large
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of bzrlib, which is an elusive target in Python.
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This may mean that in cases where today a plugin would keep running but
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give warnings, it will now fail altogether with an error.
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give warnings, it will now fail altogether with an error.
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In return we expect more freedom to change and cleanup bzrlib code without
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needing to keep old code around, or write extra compatibility shims, or
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Each major release will have one recommended data format which will be the
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default. The name of the format will indicate which release series (not
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specific release) it comes from: '2a' is the first supported format for
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the 2.0.x series, '2b' the second, etc. We don't mention the particular
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the 2.0 series, '2b' the second, etc. We don't mention the particular
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release that introduced it so as to avoid problems predicting precisely
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when it will land.
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This can be handled in various ways either at the OS packaging or the
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Python level. We don't propose to directly address it in the upstream
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source. (For example, we will not change the bzrlib library name from one
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release to the next.)
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release to the next.)
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The issue already exists with people who may want to use for example the
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previous bzr release and the trunk. There is a related issue that plugins
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only the stable releases. This is probably better than having them only
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intermittently or slowly ship the monthly releases.
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Binary installers should use a version number like '2.0.0-1' or
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'2.0.0beta1-1' so that the last component just reflects the packaging
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version, and can be incremented if a new installer is made with no
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upstream source changes.
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Binary installers should use a version number like '2.0-1' or '2.0beta1-1'
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so that the last component just reflects the packaging version, and can be
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incremented if a new installer is made with no upstream source changes.
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Code Freeze vs Announcement
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* Early communication about changing dependencies or defaults
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* Reminder re lifecycle and where we're up to right now, in particular the
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* Reminder re lifecycle and where we're up to right now, in particular the
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dates for the next release and/or candidate.
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* Summary of recent successes and pending work.
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Do users actually want this?
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Do users actually want this?
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Apparently yes, because it's often requested and often raised as a
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Would this confuse users?
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Would this confuse users?
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It shouldn't, because it's a fairly standard scheme.
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Won't it take more time to fix bugs in multiple places?
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really rather not test them, forcing them is not helpful.
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Isn't this a step backwards to a slower, less-agile process?
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No, our trunk stays releasable, and we ship every month. We're just
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No, our trunk stays releasable, and we ship every month. We're just
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cutting out things that hold us back (continuous rather than episodic
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API stability; RCs every month) and giving users what they demand.
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399
and stable releases, indicating that each has value.
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401
* API changes are easier or safer to make during beta periods, without
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being held back by fears of compatibility or
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being held back by fears of compatibility or
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404
* The stable releases are actually stable and don't introduce regressions
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405
or break plugins.
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After doing this for the 2.0 cycle (September 2009 through to early
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2010), it seems to be going well.
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Reviewing for the Stable Branch
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*******************************
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These are guidelines and can be interpreted case-by-case.
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* All changes to the stable branch should fix a bug, even if you would not
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normally file a bug for the change. The bug description should if at
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all possible explain how to manually verify the bug in a way that will
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fail before and pass after the change. (These are requirements for the
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* The change should be reasonably small and conservative.
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* Remember that the patch will be read during the SRU
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process and so keeping the patch small is useful even beyond keeping the
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logical changes small. Avoid doing mechanical bulk changes on the
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* Use particular care for things that may behave differently across
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platforms, encodings or locales. It's harder to thoroughly test these
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things before a release.
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* Generally speaking, just cleaning things up is not a sufficient reason
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to make changes to the stable branch. It has to actually fix a bug.
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* Changes to the stable branch should include tests as usual.
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* Don't change or remove existing APIs that might be used by plugins, even
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if they are underscore-prefixed. Adding APIs that are also being added
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to the trunk branch may make sense.
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* Keeping consistency with trunk is useful, but less important than
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keeping the stable branch stable.
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* (more items welcome)
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#. List thread "`[rfc] six-month stable release cycles`__", July 2009.
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.. __: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/bazaar/2009q3/060882.html
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#. List thread "[rfc] six-month stable release cycles", July 2009.
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