Hi Guys, I've started a page on xwiki.org to explain the different types of releases here: http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/VersioningAndReleasePractices
Thanks -Vincent On Jan 30, 2011, at 3:07 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote: > On 01/30/2011 07:38 AM, Mark D. Anderson wrote: >> Hi - >> >> I see that XWiki Enterprise 3.0 Milestone 1 was just released a week ago. >> I also found the roadmap at >> http://enterprise.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Roadmap >> >> I can't tell from the announcement however what the intended use is... >> Is this something that is likely to blow up ("alpha" quality)? > > All our releases are as stable as possible. It is very unlikely that > something will "blow up", as we're using Continuous Integration to > assure that at almost any point XWiki is stable > (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Continuous_Integration) > > The main difference between a milestone and a final release is that > during milestones new features introduced are not yet tested in many > different environments, so they might look badly in certain versions of > IE, or there might be problems on a different database, but this usually > only affects new features introduced in that milestone. Something that > was working in the previous stable version should still work in the new > milestone. > > Between a milestone release and the final release, most of the > development efforts go into testing and polishing the new features, so > that the "stable" 3.0 version is as stable as possible. > > The "bugfix" releases, like 3.0.1 or 2.6.2, rarely solve critical bugs > in their equivalent major release, but usually backport bugs solved > during the future release. These bugs aren't blockers, just things that > need to be ironed out, so instead of waiting for the 2.7.5 release, > better try the 3.0 release, since it is almost as stable, but with even > more bugs fixed and some new features. > >> At what point in the roadmap does it make >> sense for a new install to try a 3.0.x release instead of 2.x release? > > If by "try" you mean installing it in production, then 3.0. If you need > really fast something that is only present in the latest milestone, then > it should be fairly safe to use a milestone in production, but you > should upgrade as soon as the stable version is released. > > If by "try" you mean start preparing for a production deployment, the > answer is, in my opinion, the first release candidate (3.0-rc-1). It's > what will be in the final 3.0 release, and it gives you time to prepare > the environment and test the wiki before the stable release is out. > > If by "try" you mean start exploring for an eventual deployment, then > you can already start that, although the best point will be the last > milestone (in this case it looks like 3.0-milestone-2), since it will > have most of the features planned for the final 3.0 release. > > If by "try" you mean testing it and trying to help the community, then > you can take any snapshot (from > http://maven.xwiki.org/snapshots/org/xwiki/enterprise/ ) and test it, > test the new features introduced, report any bugs encountered, or even > things you don't like (usability, interface), things you'd like to be > better (better functionality of the features), etc. > >> In addition to stability of the software, what about stability of any >> APIs - are those frozen in M1? >> If I adopt M1, will M2 automatically upgrade from M1, or are automatic >> upgrades only assured for migration from a stable 2.x release? > > Scriptable APIs are stable, so most of the Velocity code that you write > should work in future versions. The APIs that are broken (as listed on > http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/ReleaseNotes/ReleaseNotesXWikiEnterprise30M1#HAPIBreakages > > for example) are usually internal APIs (SPIs), that you should be > concerned about only if you're writing custom Java components. > > 3.0 is an exceptional case, since we're actually removing deprecated > public APIs, but those APIs have been deprecated for a long time, and > it's highly unlikely that they are still used. > > Platform upgrades should work pretty well between any two versions, > provided you do the upgrade correctly. The closer the two versions, the > safer the upgrade. Again, what could break is custom components that > rely on internal SPIs. > >> When 3.0 final is out, will work on 2.7 basically stop? > > No, the rule is that we maintain two old branches in parallel to the > trunk. When 3.0 will be out, the trunk will already be on 3.1-SNAPSHOT, > and the previously maintained branches will become 3.0 and 2.7. At that > moment in theory the 2.6 branch will be dropped. > > We sometimes make exceptions from this rule, for example right now we're > maintaining 3 older branches (starting with 2.5, see > https://svn.xwiki.org/svnroot/xwiki/platform/core/branches/ ). > >> Will the current release of XWord work with XE 3.0M1? > > If it works with 2.7, it should work with 3.0 as well, since there have > been no changes in the REST or XmlRpc systems. > >> Regarding extensions, the listing at >> http://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ >> says nothing about version compatibility. I'm guessing that because of the >> velocity upgrade, >> trying any extension with heavy velocity usage would be a gamble with XE >> 3.0M1 ? >> Or is there an automatic "smoke test" report somewhere of what extensions are >> certain to not work? > > Some extensions list their minimal required version (for example > http://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/Multipage+Export+Application#HPrerequisites26InstallationInstructions > > ). There's no maximum version, since we can't predict when will > extensions stop working. > > Most of the extensions there are not officially maintained by the XWiki > committers, so we're not testing them for compatibility with each new > release. If there's an extension that doesn't work, leave a comment on > its page, or send a mail to the users list, or you can try to fix it > yourself and upload a new version (it's an open wiki). > >> Sorry for all the questions, but I seem to have hit xwiki at a cusp in its >> lifecycle >> so I'm in a quandary about which version to start with. > > -- > Sergiu Dumitriu > http://purl.org/net/sergiu/ _______________________________________________ users mailing list users@xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
