MySQL has a new release model
In an earlier post, the pursuit of openness, I announced that MySQL is working at a new release model.
There are still a few details to sort out, but the general plan is ready. The new release model has been approved and starts to operate immediately.
The basic principles of this model are:
- The trunk is always at least in beta quality.
- A milestone starts in beta quality ( never in alpha) with a merge between the trunk and a stage tree;
- Milestone releases, with RC quality, released every three to six months.
- Integration windows between milestones allow the insertion of new features from stage trees
- GA releases happen every 12 to 18 months;
- There are not more than two releases in active support.
The practical consequences of this model adoption is that what was planned for the previous development is now canceled. MySQL 6.0 planned features (Falcon, Maria, Online Backup) are not a priority for the time being.
The next stage tree will be Azalea, which will include the 6.0 features that are stable enough to have a chance to be merged with 5.4 (mainly, subquery optimization batched key access, the fix for Bug#989, out parameters in stored procedures, information_schema.parameters, and some more).
The fundamental difference between this version and the previous one is that Azalea is not blocking. In the previous model, nothing could be released until all the features were ready. In this model, if the features in Azalea are not stable by the time of the intended GA for 5.4, we will rollback, and release only what is ready and stable.
This sort of train model, which has been quite successful with other open source projects, is more dynamic, easy to understand, and more open to participation.
The details of the model are explained in a MySQL University session, today, June 11, at 14:00 UTC (16:00 CET), where Tomas Ulin, director of engineering for the MySQL server, will explain the model and answer questions.
Posted at 12:14PM Jun 11, 2009 by Giuseppe Maxia in mysql | Comments[1]
That is really great news.
Posted by Nils on June 11, 2009 at 08:02 PM CEST #