Release Schedule

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Revision as of 11:58, 29 January 2006 by Cstim (talk | contribs) (update todo list)
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Draft Release Schedule for 1.9.x

This is a draft release schedule for unstable 1.9.x releases of gnucash, which will eventually lead to the stable 2.0.0 release of gnome2-based gnucash.

Goal

Goal for 2.0.0: For the first 2.0.0 release the plan is to finish porting those parts of gnucash that have already been started (i.e. new windowing system, account tree, commodities tree, etc.), but not to port any additional features unless absolutely required.

Purpose of all 1.9.x releases: Any 1.9.x is not yet stable, but is meant to provide easier access to the current source code for wider testing. Also, at some point in time the 1.9.x series should go into a string freeze so that translators can fully concentrate on their translation work.

Requirements of 1.9.x releases

  • Any 1.9.x has to offer full backward-compatibility of the data file. It should always be possible to use a 1.9.x-saved XML datafile again with any 1.8.x version. (Note: There was a change at 1.8.5, 17 Aug 2003, to enable correct XML namespace definitions in the file; we might drop backward compatibility to <1.8.5 at some point in time.)
  • Bugzilla queries for the list of bugs assigned to those milestones:

Caveats

Caveats for testers:

  • Any 1.9.x version might crash unexpectedly at any point during runtime. If you test some serious work in a 1.9.x release, make sure you hit "Save" after ever non-trivial workstep.
  • Keep in mind that features which are not used in everyday work might crash unexpectedly at all times. This includes but is not limited to: graphical reports, scheduled transaction editor, price editor, financial calculator, OFX/QIF/HBCI import.
  • Especially all the new features might crash instantly on testing. This applies in particular to any of the budget-related features. We may always decide to disable such new features for the initial 2.0.0 release, and re-enable them for a later release branch.
  • The documentation is completely outdated. All help texts usually only refer to the 1.8.x series; please expect all descriptions in the help texts to be totally wrong when applied to the upcoming 1.9.x series. Everyone is invited to help improve the documentation; see Development on how to get involved.

Schedule

Proposed DRAFT schedule. All dates are the Sunday of a weekend. It is proposed to have a release every three week interval; we might shorten that to shorter intervals (every other week, maybe).

  • 1.9.0 January 29th; Initial announcement and call for venturous testers
  • 1.9.1 February 19th; bugfixes
  • 1.9.2 March 13th; String freeze; call for translations; call for more testers
  • 1.9.3 April 2nd; bugfixes
  • 1.9.4 April 23th; bugfixes
  • maybe? 2.0.0 May 7th; big party at German LinuxTag (cstim will probably give a GnuCash presentation there)

This is only a DRAFT and subject to change at all times. --Cstim 05:55, 16 January 2006 (EST)

TODO

Several other issues need to be solved for these 1.9.x releases.

(Feel free to add more issues here.)