Nathan Hartman wrote on Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 15:25:55 -0400:
> the explanation about support periods should be easy to understand.
Index: staging/roadmap.html
===================================================================
--- staging/roadmap.html (revision 1900368)
+++ staging/roadmap.html (working copy)
@@ -86,41 +86,46 @@
title="Link to this section">¶</a>
</h2>
-<p>Subversion plans to make a regular release every 6 months,
- with a Long-Term Support (LTS) release every 2 years.
- Regular releases are intended to deliver new features more quickly, while
- LTS releases are intended to provide stability over longer periods.
+<p>Subversion has two types of releases:
+ <em>regular</em> releases are intended to deliver new features more
quickly, while
+ <em><acronym title='Long-Term Support'>LTS</acronym></em> releases are
intended to provide stability over longer periods.
</p>
-<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="centered">
- <tr>
- <th>type of release</th>
- <th>emphasis</th>
- <th>release every</th>
- <th>support period</th>
- <th>release numbers</th>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>LTS release</td>
- <td>stability</td>
- <td>2 years</td>
- <td>4 years</td>
- <td>1.10, 1.14, ...</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>regular release</td>
- <td>features</td>
- <td>6 months</td>
- <td>6 months</td>
- <td>1.11, 1.12, 1.13, ...</td>
- </tr>
-</table>
+<p>The two types releases differ in their support lifetime:</p>
+<ul>
+
+<li><p>Regular releases are supported for <b>six months</b> from the date of
+their initial release. For instance, 1.11.x was supported until six months
+after the announcement of 1.11.0.</p></li>
+
+<li><p>LTS releases are supported for <b>four years</b> from the date of their
+initial release. For instance, 1.15.x will supported until four years after
+the announcement of 1.15.0.</p>
+
+<p>LTS releases are supported until <b>three months</b> after the release of
+the the next LTS.</p>
+
+<p>The previous two guarantees cumulate: for an LTS release line to be declared
+end-of-life (EOL), it has to <em>both</em> have been first released over four
+years before <em>and</em> have been supported in parallel to a newer LTS
+release line for at least three months.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, assume 1.42.0 is released on 2042-07-01 and 1.42 is declared
+an LTS line. In this case, 1.42 will be supported at least until 2046-06-30
+(with no ifs, buts, or maybes). Furthermore, it is expected that a newer LTS
+release (1.43.0, 1.44.0, etc.) will be made before 2046-04-01, leaving three
+months for upgrading installations. In case no newer LTS release is made
+until, say, 2048-01-01, the lifetime of 1.42 will automatically be extended
+until 2048-03-31.</p>
+
+<p>At any given time there will be at least one supported LTS release.</p></li>
+
+</ul>
+
<p>During the support period, we commit to providing updates that fix high
priority issues such as security and data loss or corruption. We may also
-sometimes fix other issues as appropriate to the emphasis of each release.
-If a release takes longer than planned, we will extend the support periods
-of the previous releases accordingly.</p>
+sometimes fix other issues as appropriate to the emphasis of each release.</p>
<p>In this context, "release" means an increment of the minor release
number, which is the middle number in our three-component system.
@@ -131,6 +136,9 @@
bugfixes have accumulated to warrant it. Major new releases, such as
Subversion 2.0, will probably be done much like the minor releases,
just with more planning around the exact features.<p>
+
+<p>To date, every release since 1.0 has been LTS, with the exception of 1.11,
+1.12, and 1.13 which were regular.</p>
<p>For more information about Subversion's release numbering and
compatibility policies, see the section entitled
