[Opensource] Future expresso development - support for released stable versions?

[Sandra Cann]

Mike,

The answer to your question about maintaining 4.1.x as a stable release
was posted in the email announcing that the 4.1 RC1 download is onsite.
I could certainly see getting excited about the RC release enough to go
get the download - and hence not noticing the rest of the email ;) - so
here it is again.

STABLE 4.1.X RELEASE TO BE MAINTAINED
-----------------------------------------
Once the final release is made we'll start working on 4.1.1. Non
critical bugs and annoyances are going to be relegated to a 4.1.1
release which we're looking for a date of 3 weeks after 4.1 final is
released. 

One of the beneficial changes we are making as of Expresso 4.1 is a
commitment to maintaining the last stable release with ongoing bug fixes
for our many production users. 

This means at some point branching and maintaining two versions both
4.1.X and 4.2. The benefit to number of production users using Expresso
justifies the additional work required. 

MORE FREQUENT PRODUCTION RELEASES
--------------------------------------
As you know the ongoing additional of features creates a long ongoing
testing cycle. There needs to be a cut-off much earlier to get out
releases more frequently. So for each development cycle we will define
the "critical path" by 2-3 iterations (new planned features as per
Roadmap). During the development of these features we will incorporate
additional contributed features. Once the "critical path" items are
completed we will "close" the release to adding new features (they will
be added to the next release) except those that are additional new files
(features) that do not affect existing code and can be marked
"experimental", i.e. new tags. Testing will be finalized quicker this
way and hence "aim" for a new release every few months. This will result
positively with a quicker release cycle and users will be able to use
their contributed code in a production release that much faster. 

Please have a read of the roadmap (under Documentaton) and discuss here
on list [or the developers forum] any changes you would like to see in
this planning. 

Cheers
Sandra