Four scheduled releases each year, with two types of releases: major releases and maintenance releases (defect fixes only).
Major release every six months (January 31st, July 31th)
Maintenance release every six months (April 30th, October 31st)
Consists of:
Feature development (minus 6 months to minus 4 weeks)
New features, changes and enhancements to existing features, and/or bug fixes.
Integration period (minus 4 weeks to minus 2 weeks)
Milestone: Feature Freeze at release minus 4 weeks.
Integration, QA and testing of the different contributions.
Release Candidate period (minus 2 weeks to minus 1 day).
Milestone: The RC0 build.
During RC Period, fix blocker & critical defects. Other defects deferred to next cycle.
New blocker and critical bugs will be fixed and will trigger a new RC build.
Release Criteria: no blocker or critical defects.
End of Release Candidate Period (day before release date)
Major Release (release date)
Milestone: Release
Build the new release
Major Release goes live and is available to download
| Major Release Summary - Example | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Aug 1 – Dec 31 | Jan 1 – Jan 15 | Jan 15 – Jan 30 | Jan 30 | Jan 31 |
Feature Development | MS: Feature Freeze Integration period integration, QA and testing | MS: RC0 Release Candidate period Only fix blockers and | Build the new Release | Major release goes live and is available for download |
No new features. Starts after every major release and consists of:
Bug fix period (minus 3 months to minus 2 weeks)
Bug Fix Freeze at release minus 2 weeks
Release Candidate period (minus 2 weeks to day before release date)
During RC Period, fix blocker & critical defects. Other defects deferred to next cycle.
New blocker and critical bugs will be fixed and will trigger a new RC build.
Release Criteria: no blocker or critical defects.
End of Release Candidate Period (day before release date)
Maintenance Release (release date)
Milestone: Maintenance Release
Build the maintenance release
Maintenance Release goes live and is available to download
Maintenance Release Summary Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 1 - April 15 | April 16-29 | April 29 | April 30 |
Defect fixes | MS: RC0 Release Candidate period Only fix blocker and critical defects | Build the Maintenance Release | General Availability of the Announcement |
| Severity | Definition |
|---|---|
| Blocker | |
| Critical | |
| Major | |
| Minor |