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<div class="yui-g" id="internals-release-process">
<div class="section" id="s-django-s-release-process">
<span id="django-s-release-process"></span><h1>Django’s release process<a class="headerlink" href="#django-s-release-process" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<div class="section" id="s-official-releases">
<span id="s-id1"></span><span id="official-releases"></span><span id="id1"></span><h2>Official releases<a class="headerlink" href="#official-releases" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Since version 1.0, Django’s release numbering works as follows:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>Versions are numbered in the form <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A.B</span></tt> or <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A.B.C</span></tt>.</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A</span></tt> is the <em>major version</em> number, which is only incremented for major
changes to Django, and these changes are not necessarily
backwards-compatible. That is, code you wrote for Django 1.6 may break
when we release Django 2.0.</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">B</span></tt> is the <em>minor version</em> number, which is incremented for large yet
backwards compatible changes. Code written for Django 1.6 will continue
to work under Django 1.7. Exceptions to this rule will be listed in the
release notes.</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">C</span></tt> is the <em>micro version</em> number, which is incremented for bug and
security fixes. A new micro-release will be 100% backwards-compatible with
the previous micro-release. The only exception is when a security issue
can’t be fixed without breaking backwards-compatibility. If this happens,
the release notes will provide detailed upgrade instructions.</li>
<li>Before a new minor release, we’ll make alpha, beta, and release candidate
releases. These are of the form <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A.B</span> <span class="pre">alpha/beta/rc</span> <span class="pre">N</span></tt>, which means the
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Nth</span></tt> alpha/beta/release candidate of version <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A.B</span></tt>.</li>
</ul>
<p>In git, each Django release will have a tag indicating its version number,
signed with the Django release key. Additionally, each release series has its
own branch, called <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">stable/A.B.x</span></tt>, and bugfix/security releases will be
issued from those branches.</p>
<p>For more information about how the Django project issues new releases for
security purposes, please see <a class="reference internal" href="security.html"><em>our security policies</em></a>.</p>
<dl class="glossary docutils">
<dt id="term-major-release">Major release</dt>
<dd>Major releases (1.0, 2.0, etc.) will happen very infrequently (think “years”,
not “months”), and may represent major, sweeping changes to Django.</dd>
<dt id="term-minor-release">Minor release</dt>
<dd><p class="first">Minor release (1.5, 1.6, etc.) will happen roughly every nine months – see
<a class="reference internal" href="#id2">release process</a>, below for details. These releases will contain new
features, improvements to existing features, and such.</p>
<p id="internal-release-deprecation-policy">A minor release may deprecate certain features from previous releases. If a
feature is deprecated in version <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A.B</span></tt>, it will continue to work in versions
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A.B</span></tt> and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A.B+1</span></tt> but raise warnings. It will be removed in version
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A.B+2</span></tt>.</p>
<p>So, for example, if we decided to start the deprecation of a function in
Django 1.5:</p>
<ul class="last simple">
<li>Django 1.5 will contain a backwards-compatible replica of the function which
will raise a <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PendingDeprecationWarning</span></tt>. This warning is silent by
default; you can turn on display of these warnings with the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">-Wd</span></tt> option
of Python.</li>
<li>Django 1.6 will contain the backwards-compatible replica, but the warning
will be promoted to a full-fledged <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">DeprecationWarning</span></tt>. This warning is
<em>loud</em> by default, and will likely be quite annoying.</li>
<li>Django 1.7 will remove the feature outright.</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt id="term-micro-release">Micro release</dt>
<dd><p class="first">Micro releases (1.5.1, 1.6.2, 1.6.1, etc.) will be issued as needed, often to
fix security issues.</p>
<p class="last">These releases will be 100% compatible with the associated minor release, unless
this is impossible for security reasons. So the answer to “should I upgrade to
the latest micro release?” will always be “yes.”</p>
</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<div class="section" id="s-supported-versions">
<span id="s-backwards-compatibility-policy"></span><span id="supported-versions"></span><span id="backwards-compatibility-policy"></span><h2>Supported versions<a class="headerlink" href="#supported-versions" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>At any moment in time, Django’s developer team will support a set of releases to
varying levels:</p>
<ul>
<li><p class="first">The current development master will get new features and bug fixes
requiring major refactoring.</p>
</li>
<li><p class="first">Patches applied to the master branch must also be applied to the last minor
release, to be released as the next micro release, when they fix critical
problems:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>Security issues.</li>
<li>Data-loss bugs.</li>
<li>Crashing bugs.</li>
<li>Major functionality bugs in newly-introduced features.</li>
</ul>
<p>The rule of thumb is that fixes will be backported to the last minor release
for bugs that would have prevented a release in the first place (release
blockers).</p>
</li>
<li><p class="first">Security fixes will be applied to the current master and the previous two
minor releases.</p>
</li>
<li><p class="first">Committers may choose to backport bugfixes at their own discretion,
provided they do not introduce backwards incompatibilities.</p>
</li>
<li><p class="first">Documentation fixes generally will be more freely backported to the last
release branch. That’s because it’s highly advantageous to have the docs for
the last release be up-to-date and correct, and the risk of introducing
regressions is much less of a concern.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>As a concrete example, consider a moment in time halfway between the release of
Django 1.6 and 1.7. At this point in time:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>Features will be added to development master, to be released as Django 1.7.</li>
<li>Critical bug fixes will be applied to the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">stable/1.6.x</span></tt> branch, and
released as 1.6.1, 1.6.2, etc.</li>
<li>Security fixes will be applied to <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">master</span></tt>, to the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">stable/1.6.x</span></tt>
branch, and to the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">stable/1.5.x</span></tt> branch. They will trigger the release of
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">1.6.1</span></tt>, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">1.5.1</span></tt>, etc.</li>
<li>Documentation fixes will be applied to master, and, if easily backported, to
the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">1.6.x</span></tt> branch. Bugfixes may also be backported.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="section" id="s-long-term-support-lts-releases">
<span id="s-lts-releases"></span><span id="long-term-support-lts-releases"></span><span id="lts-releases"></span><h2>Long-term support (LTS) releases<a class="headerlink" href="#long-term-support-lts-releases" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Additionally, the Django team will occasionally designate certain releases
to be “Long-term support” (LTS) releases. LTS releases will get security fixes
applied for a guaranteed period of time, typically 3+ years, regardless of
the pace of releases afterwards.</p>
<p>The follow releases have been designated for long-term support:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>Django 1.4, supported until at least March 2015.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="section" id="s-release-process">
<span id="s-id2"></span><span id="release-process"></span><span id="id2"></span><h2>Release process<a class="headerlink" href="#release-process" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Django uses a time-based release schedule, with minor (i.e. 1.6, 1.7, etc.)
releases every nine months, or more, depending on features.</p>
<p>After each release, and after a suitable cooling-off period of a few weeks, the
core development team will examine the landscape and announce a timeline for the
next release. Most releases will be scheduled in the 6-9 month range, but if we
have bigger features to development we might schedule a longer period to allow
for more ambitious work.</p>
<div class="section" id="s-release-cycle">
<span id="release-cycle"></span><h3>Release cycle<a class="headerlink" href="#release-cycle" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Each release cycle will be split into three periods, each lasting roughly
one-third of the cycle:</p>
<div class="section" id="s-phase-one-feature-proposal">
<span id="phase-one-feature-proposal"></span><h4>Phase one: feature proposal<a class="headerlink" href="#phase-one-feature-proposal" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4>
<p>The first phase of the release process will be devoted to figuring out what
features to include in the next version. This should include a good deal of
preliminary work on those features – working code trumps grand design.</p>
<p>At the end of part one, the core developers will propose a feature list for the
upcoming release. This will be broken into:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>“Must-have”: critical features that will delay the release if not finished</li>
<li>“Maybe” features: that will be pushed to the next release if not finished</li>
<li>“Not going to happen”: features explicitly deferred to a later release.</li>
</ul>
<p>Anything that hasn’t got at least some work done by the end of the first third
isn’t eligible for the next release; a design alone isn’t sufficient.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="s-phase-two-development">
<span id="phase-two-development"></span><h4>Phase two: development<a class="headerlink" href="#phase-two-development" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4>
<p>The second third of the release schedule is the “heads-down” working period.
Using the roadmap produced at the end of phase one, we’ll all work very hard to
get everything on it done.</p>
<p>Longer release schedules will likely spend more than a third of the time in this
phase.</p>
<p>At the end of phase two, any unfinished “maybe” features will be postponed until
the next release. Though it shouldn’t happen, any “must-have” features will
extend phase two, and thus postpone the final release.</p>
<p>Phase two will culminate with an alpha release. At this point, the
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">stable/A.B.x</span></tt> branch will be forked from <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">master</span></tt>.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="s-phase-three-bugfixes">
<span id="phase-three-bugfixes"></span><h4>Phase three: bugfixes<a class="headerlink" href="#phase-three-bugfixes" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4>
<p>The last third of a release cycle is spent fixing bugs – no new features will
be accepted during this time. We’ll try to release a beta release after one
month and a release candidate after two months.</p>
<p>The release candidate marks the string freeze, and it happens at least two
weeks before the final release. After this point, new translatable strings
must not be added.</p>
<p>During this phase, committers will be more and more conservative with
backports, to avoid introducing regressions. After the release candidate, only
release blockers and documentation fixes should be backported.</p>
<p>In parallel to this phase, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">master</span></tt> can receive new features, to be released
in the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">A.B+1</span></tt> cycle.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="s-bug-fix-releases">
<span id="bug-fix-releases"></span><h3>Bug-fix releases<a class="headerlink" href="#bug-fix-releases" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>After a minor release (e.g. 1.6), the previous release will go into bugfix
mode.</p>
<p>A branch will be created of the form <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">stable/1.5.x</span></tt> to track bugfixes to the
previous release. Critical bugs fixed on master must <em>also</em> be fixed on the
bugfix branch; this means that commits need to cleanly separate bug fixes from
feature additions. The developer who commits a fix to master will be
responsible for also applying the fix to the current bugfix branch.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="s-how-this-all-fits-together">
<span id="how-this-all-fits-together"></span><h3>How this all fits together<a class="headerlink" href="#how-this-all-fits-together" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Let’s look at a hypothetical example for how this all first together. Imagine,
if you will, a point about halfway between 1.5 and 1.6. At this point,
development will be happening in a bunch of places:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>On master, development towards 1.6 proceeds with small additions, bugs
fixes, etc. being checked in daily.</li>
<li>On the branch <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">stable/1.5.x</span></tt>, fixes for critical bugs found in
the 1.5 release are checked in as needed. At some point, this branch will
be released as “1.5.1”, “1.5.2”, etc.</li>
<li>On the branch <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">stable/1.4.x</span></tt>, security fixes are made if
needed and released as “1.4.2”, “1.4.3”, etc.</li>
<li>Development of major features is done in branches in forks of the main
repository. These branches will be merged into <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">master</span></tt> before “1.6
alpha 1”.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<h3><a href="../contents.html">Table Of Contents</a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#">Django’s release process</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#official-releases">Official releases</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#supported-versions">Supported versions</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#long-term-support-lts-releases">Long-term support (LTS) releases</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#release-process">Release process</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#release-cycle">Release cycle</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#phase-one-feature-proposal">Phase one: feature proposal</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#phase-two-development">Phase two: development</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#phase-three-bugfixes">Phase three: bugfixes</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#bug-fix-releases">Bug-fix releases</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#how-this-all-fits-together">How this all fits together</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
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