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core product. They also want a Just Works experience across the full
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Bazaar ecosystem. To deliver the first and enable the second, we're
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adopting some standard process patterns: a 6 monthly release cycle and a
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stable series. These changes will also have other benefits, including
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stable branch. These changes will also have other benefits, including
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better availability of bug fixes in OS distributions, more freedom to
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15
remove old code, and less work for in packaging.
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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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Bazaar will make a major release every six months, which will be supported at
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least until the time of the next major release and generally 18 months after
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the first final release in a series. During this support period, we'll make
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incremental releases which fix bugs, but which do not change network or disk
32
formats or command syntax, and which do not require updates to plugins.
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Bazaar will make a major release every six months, which will be supported
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at least until the time of the next major release. During this support
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period, we'll make incremental releases which fix bugs, but which do not
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change network or disk formats or command syntax, and which do not require
34
77
We will also run a development series, which will become the next major
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78
release. We'll make a beta release from this every four weeks. The
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118
often if there are serious bugs, perhaps much less often if no new changes
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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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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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are "paid for" by not doing RCs for the development series.
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130
We will synchronize our major releases with Ubuntu, so that they come out
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131
in sufficient time for some testing and margin of error before Ubuntu's
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163
Major releases (2.0.0 or 2.1.0)
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164
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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167
Release candidate (2.0.0rc1)
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A preview of a major release, made one or a few weeks beforehand at the
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time the release branch is created. There should be few if any changes
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from the rc to the stable release. We should avoid the confusing phrasing
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"release candidate 2.0.0rc1 is released"; instead use "available."
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Starting with the 2.3 series we don't plan on making release candidates
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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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174
Bugfix releases (2.0.1)
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Based on the previous major release or bugfix; contains only bugfixes
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176
and perhaps documentation or translation corrections.
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A major release and its descendant bugfix releases.
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182
Either a major release or a bugfix release.
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Beta release (3.0.0beta1)
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185
Made from trunk every month, except for the month there's a major
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186
release. Stable and suitable for users who want the latest code and
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187
can live with some changes from month to month.
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189
Development series
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The development releases leading up to a stable release.
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Plugins that want to cooperate with this should make a series and a branch
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227
that matches each bzr stable series, and follow similar rules in making
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228
releases from their stable branch. We'd expect that plugins will make a
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release between the first beta release of a series and the final major
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release between the last development release of a series and the major
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232
Within a stable series, anything that breaks any known plugin is
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233
considered an API break and will be avoided. Before
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At present we have three upstream-maintained PPAs containing Ubuntu packages
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of Bazaar: ``bzr/daily`` (snapshots), ``bzr-beta-ppa/ppa`` (beta releases) and
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``bzr/ppa`` (ie stable). Beta contains the monthly beta releases, and the
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stable PPA contains stable releases and bugfixes to those releases.
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At present we have three upstream-maintained PPAs containing Ubuntu
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packages of Bazaar: ``~bzr-nightly-ppa``, ``~bzr-beta-ppa`` (rcs and
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releases) and ``~bzr`` (ie stable). We will keep these PPAs, and reorient
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beta to contain the monthly beta releases, and the stable PPA to contain
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stable releases, their release candidates, and bugfixes to those releases.
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326
Some platforms with relatively less active packagers may choose to ship
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327
only the stable releases. This is probably better than having them only
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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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doc/developers/cycle.txt
