Release Version Numbering
By Ron Henderson
OpenACS version numbers help identify at a high-level what is in a
particular release and what has changed since the last release. A
"version number" is really just a string of the form:
major-minor-release
A change in the major version number indicates a fundamental
change in the architecture of the system, e.g. OpenACS 3 to ACS 4. A
change in the minor version number signifies the addition of
new modules and minor data model changes, e.g. OpenACS 3.1 to OpenACS 3.2.
The final release number indicates the relative maturity of a
release and marks things like bug fixes; it follows the ordered
progression:
alpha
beta
0 (production release)
1
2
...
So typical release version numbers would be:
openacs-3.2.5
openacs-4.0.beta
The first is a relatively mature release of the OpenACS 3.2 base code
and the second is a non-public release of OpenACS 4.0 that probably still
has lots of bugs.
Version numbers are also recorded in the CVS repository so that the
code tree can be restored to the exact state it was in for a
particular release. To translate between a distribution tar file
(acs-3.2.2.tar.gz) and a CVS tag, just swap '.' for '-' and add the
release date. The entire release history of the toolkit is recorded
in the tags for the top-level readme.txt file:
> cvs log readme.txt
RCS file: /usr/local/cvsroot/acs/readme.txt,v
Working file: readme.txt
head: 3.1
branch:
locks: strict
access list:
symbolic names:
acs-4-0: 3.1.0.8
acs-3-2-2-R20000412: 3.1
acs-3-2-1-R20000327: 3.1
acs-3-2-0-R20000317: 3.1
acs-3-2-beta: 3.1
acs-3-2: 3.1.0.4
acs-3-1-5-R20000304: 1.7.2.2
acs-3-1-4-R20000228: 1.7.2.2
acs-3-1-3-R20000220: 1.7.2.2
acs-3-1-2-R20000213: 1.7.2.1
acs-3-1-1-R20000205: 1.7.2.1
acs-3-1-0-R20000204: 1.7
acs-3-1-beta: 1.7
acs-3-1-alpha: 1.7
acs-3-1: 1.7.0.2
v24: 1.5
v23: 1.4
start: 1.1.1.1
arsdigita: 1.1.1
keyword substitution: kv
total revisions: 13; selected revisions: 13
description:
...
In the future, OpenACS packages should follow this same
convention on version numbers.
Transition Rules
So what distinguishes an alpha release from a beta
release? Or from a production release? We follow a specific set of
rules for how OpenACS makes the transition from one state of maturity to
the next.
Every release must pass the minimum requirements that it cleanly
installs and cleanly upgrades from the previous version of OpenACS. In
addition to this the release label implies:
development
This is the default state for the head of the current release branch. We
make no guarantees about this code.
alpha
All tickets of severity critical have been closed and the
distribution has no known installation or upgrade problems.
beta
All tickets of severity serious or greater have been closed
and all documentation is up to date (version history, release notes,
new module docs, etc.).
production [0, 1, ...]
All tickets of severity medium or greater have been closed,
including issues reported from outside users.
In the future we will guarantee that more mature releases
incorporate all the fixes for earlier problems by developing a
detailed set of regression tests. For now we try to enforce this by
restricting work on the release branch to fixing reported problem in
the current release, e.g. no new features or big changes to
fundamental behavior.
($Id: eng-standards-versioning.xml,v 1.2.2.1 2002/05/15 23:26:19 vinodk Exp $)