Hi, we are considering a long-term project (likely lifecycle of several years) with an initial production release in approximately three months.
We're intending to use Solr 3.6.0, with a view for upgrading to 4.0 upon stable release. However, http://lucene.apache.org/solr/ now has 4.0-ALPHA as the main download, implying this version is for general use. But on the other hand, the release notes state "This is an alpha release for early adopters." and http://wiki.apache.org/solr/Solr4.0 gives a timescale of 60 days minimum before final release. We'd like to use 4.0 features such as near real-time updates, but haven't identified these as must-haves for the initial release. Given that our first production release is likely to occur a month after that 60 days, is 4.0-ALPHA suitable for general product development, or is it recommended to stick with 3.6.0 and accept an upgrade cost when 4.0 is stable? (Perhaps this hinges on understanding why 4.0-ALPHA is now the main download option). Thanks.