02 July 2012, 20:26

Hi all,

As per the discussion at the past two developer meetings and in the previous forum thread on the topic we will be heading into feature freeze in approximately 5 weeks time for the 1.6 series.

What does this mean?

This means that somewhere between the 6th and 10th of August, we will:

• Stop accepting new changes that add brand new functionality or features.
• Stop accepting changes that add new functionality to existing features. 
• Only commit bug fixes to the 1.6 branch which fixes functionality that already exists.
• Postpone late submissions for the 1.7 branch instead.

How does this affect me?

If you are working on a new feature for 1.6, or if you wish to sponsor a new feature to be included in the 1.6 release, this feature will need to have passed the review process and be accepted into the master branch by the 6th of August. If you need a hand with this, please check with us early. If it is not accepted, then we will postpone it for the 1.7 series.

If you are developing your own stuff exclusively for your own site, then this should provide an indication of what you should expect your stuff to work with.

Why are you doing this?

We do this to allow us to focus our attention on bugfixing in the final stretch of the release period. Because we are not introducing new functionality that can potentially contain bugs, we are avoiding adding to to the bugfixing workload, resulting in a cleaner product.

If you have any questions about the 6 monthly release cycle, please ask.

Thanks for helping us make Mahara better!

- The 1.6 release team