
Monday, November 25, 1996

ANNOUNCEMENT:  Release policy for Lesstif


Introduction:

This is a general announcement of the new, improved release policy for LessTif.
This policy will surely change over the next few days, until we get the
wrinkles out.

Purpose:

In the past, the core team (for various reasons) has been somewhat lax about
creating releases for the public.  This policy notification is our admittance
of that fact, and our plans to address the problem.

Policy:

The new policy for releases is as follows:

1)  Minor (or development) releases will have an extension that is divisible
    by .01 (e.g., 0.71, 0.72, 0.73).  Minor releases may or may not be
    stable; however, they will at least be compileable.

2)  Major (or public) releases will have an extension that is divisible by
    0.05 (e.g., 0.75, 0.80, 0.85).  Major releases are expected to be
    reasonably stable.  However, major release does not imply "beta" --
    just that the team feels the release is suitable for the general public.

3)  Major releases are scheduled no fewer than one per quarter or more than
    one per month (barring occasional brain damage).

4)  If we run out of .01 numbers between public releases, we'll probably add
    a alphabetic extension (0.74a, 0.74b, etc).

5)  Major releases will be accompanied by announcements to
    comp.windows.x.motif, linux-announce, freebsd-announce, etc.

6)  Minor releases will be announced to lesstif@hungry.com.  Casual members of
    that list are encouraged to work from the numbered releases; however,
    for those that want to be on the bleeding edge, lesstif-current will
    continue to be available.  The minor releases are intended to help those
    that only periodically grab the source tree, and don't want to guess
    which -current to get.


Summary:

This policy is being implemented, starting today, with the 0.71 release.  This
release is a MINOR release, and an announcement of a code freeze targeted at
creating a MAJOR release in early December.  Lesstif list members are therefore
HIGHLY encouraged to take this release, test their favorite applications, and
submit bug reports to lesstif@hungry.com (see BUG-REPORTING for details).

Thanks for your continuing support...

The Core Team

