This is a suggestion for a release cycle for TWiki development. As has been mentioned elsewhere, TWiki averages 2 releases per year, but based on the number of patches and enhancements that get posted, I'd like to suggest a more frequent release schedule:

2 major releases: Winter and Summer. The winter release would be the major release of the year with the most new features. The summer release would have less new features, given that people are less likely to want to deal with a new TWiki release in the summer, compared to all that indoor time in the winter.

2 minor releases: Spring and Fall. Bug fixes, corrections and minor enhancements to existing features.

Each release would have a 3 month window for delivery:

• • 12/21 - 3/20 for the winter release
  • 3/21 - 6/20 for the spring release
  • 6/21 - 9/20 for the summer release
  • 9/21 - 12/20 for the fall release

(Based on the idea that solistaces and equinoxes fall on the 21st nominally.)

Each release would be named something like TWikiSpring2002 for example. This way no calendar date gets missed if development gets slipped... The idea is to make the 21st, but allow up to 3 months for slippage (surely thats enough!).

This is just an idea, posted as an enhancement request to encourge discussion...

(Oops, I just remembered that the ides of a month is the 15th! - so much for trying to be cute!)

-- DavidLeBlanc - 10 Mar 2002

Two things (at least):

• If we do this, the 12/21 - 3/20 release should be known as the spring release, not the winter release. My expectation for a, e.g., spring release is that it be released at or near the beginning of the period, not the end.
• Didn't we go through the jokes a little while ago about a specific release changing from the northern hemisphere <some season> release to the southern hemisphere <some season> release? Aren't we just setting ourselves up for that?

I have to remind myself of what we're doing now -- during development we name a release after a city (Beijing), and at release we name it based on the first day of the month of release (like 01 Dec 2001). I don't see the benefit of naming it 01 Dec 2001? Why not:

• Release it as the Beijing release. The next release will be a city name starting with "C" and it will be easy to refer to any release with a brief name like "Beijing".
• In any case, the 01 in Dec 2001 is not significant and can be confusing. Not significant because the Dec 2000 release is also labeled 01 Dec 2000. Confusing because someone else (aside from me) may be tempted to think of it as TWiki release 1, accomplished in December 2000 (or December 2001, or ???).
• The month in the release name is not significant for reasons cited above -- you can't distinguish between the December 2000 and December 2001 release by mentioning just the month (or as above, the month and day).
• Naming the release 01 Dec <year> even if released later in the month creates confusion and smacks of the wierd development practices of proprietary software -- I just hate to see TWiki even hint of using such practices.

Which leads us to alternatives like the <season> <year>, serial numbers (with, perhaps, major and minor numbers, and perhaps the odd and even sequences for stable and unstable releases), or something like the alphabetical sequence of cities approaches. Again, with the <season> <year> approach you can't use shorthand like the "spring" release or the "2001" release, to be safe (and so old documentation can be interpreted correctly after the fact), you must say "spring 2001". With the alphabetical sequence of cities, "Beijing" is correct, at least until we start through the alphabet the second time, at which point we should choose a different city (Bangkok, Baltimore, whatever).

Just my $.03.

-- RandyKramer - 11 Mar 2002

1. Peter, can you choose the names of the next two releases? I think it is necessary to be able to talk about features slated for the longer term. These should go into a TWikiDevelopmentRoadmap so that we don't bite off more than we can chew in any single release.
   1. Going forward how about giving major releases the names of capital cities (http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/cities.htm)
   2. Interim releases then get non-capital city names. (http://www.world-gazetteer.com/st/stata.htm, choose a country, left hand menu -> largest cities, choose a city (ensuring that it is not on the capital city list.)
      • Alternatively, you could say there are plenty of capitals without bothering with smaller place names.

-- MartinCleaver - 12 Jul 2002 (who couldn't find a suitable classification for this topic).

Just a quickie $.02: interim releases might got non-city names, like rivers, mountains, lakes etc.

-- PeterMasiar - 13 Jul 2002