Release Schedule

The scope is to release new GRASS GIS versions at a more regular schedule.

THIS IS A DRAFT OPEN FOR DISCUSSION

Suggestions

Scenario 1

Release	Planned date	Remarks	GitHub milestone	Important external releases
7.8.3	May 2020		​GH 7.8.3	May 2020: GDAL 3.1.0
7.6.2	May 2020	last release, EOL		June 2020: QGIS 3.14.0
7.8.4	Sep 2020
7.10.0	Nov 2020	forked from master
7.8.5	Jan 2021
7.10.1	Mar 2021
7.8.6	May 2021	last release, EOL
7.10.2	Jul 2021
7.10.3	Nov 2021
8.0.0	Dec 2021	forked from master

Scenario 2

WIP

Meta:

• Terminology is open to discussion, so please suggest if any term could be more clear.
• When reading, please don't just assume that, e.g., stable, means what you think it means, but see how it is defined here or used in the context; ask for clarification if needed.
• Current and present simple tense may refer to the suggested state. ("[On this scenario,] We have...", "...current release...")
• Versioning is still major.minor.patch (aka major.minor.point) and more or less semantic versioning.

In general:

• We have only one actively updated, maintained, and supported release series.
• Once a new major or minor version is released, the old release series goes to (low) maintenance mode and no further released are planned.
• All minor versions within one major version series (e.g., 7.0 and 7.8) are compatible with each other in the sense that when you create a database in one with default settings it will work in the other with default settings.
  • For example, you can create a new topology format, but by default, the old one needs to be used by default.

Versions/Releases/Builds:

• Latest release:
  • This is the supported version users should install.
• Maintenance releases:
  • Release of the latest minor version for all/any of the other release branches, i.e., release branches in the maintenance mode.
  • These versions (series/branches) are no longer actively updated, but are updated on demand, i.e., if you submit a patch to fix a bug, we will likely accept it and create a new release when there is enough changes accumulated.
  • There are two main use cases distros and large organizations.
    • For example, the version in Ubuntu 18.04 is 7.4, so there might be a next patch release in the 7.4 series.
  • These are announced only together with the next [latest?, supported?] release to avoid confusion in what is the latest release.
• Daily builds:
  • Daily builds of development version from master.

Git and branches:

• We have 3 kinds of branches:
  • Development: That's only the master branch.
    • This contains all the latest fixes and features (which were merged).
  • Current release: That's always one and only one latest release branch.
    • This receives only bug fixes.
  • Maintenance: That's all the other release branches.
• Releases are tags on release branches.

Release	Planned date	Remarks	Important external releases
7.8.3	May 2020		May 2020: GDAL 3.1.0
7.6.2	May 2020	last release, EOL	June 2020: QGIS 3.14.0
7.8.4	Sep 2020	last release, EOL
8.0.0	Nov 2020	before: 80 branch forked from master
8.0.1	Mar 2021
8.0.2	Jul 2021
8.0.3	Nov 2021
8.2.0	Dec 2021	before: 82 branch forked from master

Scenario 3

Version	Date	Comment
7.8.3	May 2020	Call it a real LTS
7.8.4	Sep 2020
7.8.5	Jan 2021
7.8.6	May 2021
7.8.7	Sep 2021	Still with Python 2
8.0.0	Oct 2020	Release for early adopters
8.0.1	Dec 2020	Just minor fixes
8.2.0	Mar 2021	Still for early adopters
8.2.1	May 2021	Just minor fixes
8.4.0	Oct 2021	First 8 for everyone

External release schedules

• GDAL: ​https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/milestones
• PROJ: ​https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/milestones?direction=asc&sort=due_date&state=open
• OSGeoLive: ​https://trac.osgeo.org/osgeolive/wiki/Release%20Schedule
• QGIS: ​https://www.qgis.org/en/site/getinvolved/development/roadmap.html#release-schedule
• R has the Easter release schedule for major releases, e.g. ​https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/old/

GRASS GIS versions in the various Linux distros

• Comparison: ​https://repology.org/project/grass/versions