Release Schedule

Draft Release Schedule for 1.9.x

This is a draft release schedule for unstable 1.9.x releases of gnucash, which will eventually lead to the stable 2.0.0 release of gnome2-based gnucash.

Goal

Goal for 2.0.0: For the first 2.0.0 release the plan is to finish porting those parts of gnucash that have already been started (i.e. new windowing system, account tree, commodities tree, etc.), but not to port any additional features unless absolutely required.

Purpose of 1.9.x: Any 1.9.x is not yet stable, but is meant to provide easier access to the current source code for wider testing. Also, at some point in time the 1.9.x series should go into a string freeze so that translators can fully concentrate on their translation work.

Requirements of 1.9.x releases

• Any 1.9.x has to offer full backward-compatibility of the data file. It should always be possible to use a 1.9.x-saved XML datafile again with any 1.8.x version. (Note: There was a change at 1.8.?? (methinks 1.8.6) to enable correct XML namespace definitions in the file; we might drop backward compatibility earlier than that release at some point in time.)
• Any 1.9.x should not crash outright at startup upon loading any 1.8.x datafile. In particular, bugs like http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=326578 need to be fixed before those releases.

Caveats

Caveats for testers:

• Any 1.9.x might crash unexpectedly at any point during runtime. If you test some serious work in a 1.9.x release, make sure you hit "Save" after ever non-trivial workstep.
• Keep in mind that features which are not used in everyday work might crash unexpectedly at all times. This includes but is not limited to: graphical reports, scheduled transaction editor, price editor, financial calculator, OFX/QIF/HBCI import.
• Especially the new features might crash instantly on testing. This applies in particular to any of the budget-related features. We may always decide to disable such new features for the initial 2.0.0 release, and re-enable them for a later release branch.

Schedule

Proposed DRAFT schedule. All dates are the Sunday of a weekend. It is proposed to have a release every three week interval; we might shorten that to shorter intervals (every other week, maybe).

• 1.9.0 January 29th; Initial announcement and call for venturous testers
• 1.9.1 February 19th; bugfixes
• 1.9.2 March 13th; String freeze; call for translations; call for more testers
• 1.9.3 April 2nd; bugfixes
• 1.9.4 April 23th; bugfixes
• maybe? 2.0.0 May 7th; big party at German LinuxTag (cstim will probably give a GnuCash presentation there)

This is only a DRAFT and subject to change at all times