TYPO3 CMS Release Cycles after 6.2 LTS (Draft)

TYPO3 CMS Release Cycles Developer Days 2014, Eindhoven

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Release Cycle until nowrelease phases

alpha - development of everything (4-6 months)

beta - feature freeze & focus on stabilization (2-4 months)

release candidates & final release (0-2 weeks under pressure)

current supported versions

4.5 LTS (until 2015-03), 4.7 (until 2014-10)

6.1 (until 2014-10), 6.2 LTS (until 2017-03)

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Long Term Support dilemmaLTS-only-users: from TYPO3 4.5 to TYPO3 6.2

ignoring versions 4.6, 4.7, 6.0 and 6.1 = four versions

4.6: caching framework & race conditions

4.7: Extbase persistence features

6.0: file abstraction layer & namespaces

deprecations - methods are removed two versions later

statistics: ~ 60-70% are LTS-only-users

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Current Release Cycle

4.5 LTS

4.6

6.06.1

4.7

6.2 LTS

6.3evolution

time2011 2014 2015

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Downsides Current Cyclesalpha & beta not tested in the wild

feature rush prior to LTS (… it’s about the next three years …)

too long feature freeze phase

high resources required for back porting fixes

low adoption of intermediate releases (between LTS)

little arguments for using intermediate releases

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

frustrated developers

confused agencies

Result

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shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

What Now?

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shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

ImprovementsLTS each 1,5 year, support for 3+ years

for early adopters: intermediate releases as „stable snapshots“

usable in production

smooth incremental upgrades possible

clear deprecation (API, code, TypoScript): only on major versions

DRAFT

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Agile Release Cycle

2014 2015

DRAFT

2016 2017 2018 2019

6.2 LTS

7 LTS

8 LTS

impr

ovem

ents

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shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Agile Release Cycle

2014 2015

7 LTS

6.2 LTS

DRAFT

impr

ovem

ents

7.0 EAR7.1 EAR

LTS stabilization

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Benefits for Developersagile incremental improvements

new features released earlier

less versions to support at the same time

focus on topics and new features during merge windows

better focus on specific features during Code Sprints

DRAFT

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Benefits for UsersEarly Adopter Releases (EAR)

stable

fail-safe upgrade functionality

easy entry point for new projects aiming the „next LTS“

LTS Releases

every 1,5 year, support for 3+ years

migration to next EA Release any time

DRAFT

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Deprecationminimum requirements and deprecations handled equally

system requirements defined when starting new major branch

browsers minimum support

PHP / MySQL minimum support

minimum requirements do not change in snapshots

deprecated stuff is kept until right after next LTS release

DRAFT

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Requirements / TODOsbetter test coverage

stable and fail-safe auto-upgrade functionality

improved working mode (git, gerrit, branches, forks, …)

new release workflow

DRAFT

Inspiring people to

shareT3DD14, Eindhoven, NL

Release Cycle of the Future

TYPO3 CMS

Learn More, Participate

http://wiki.typo3.org/Blueprints/Release

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