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Release Process

This document explains the release process for eZ Platform and eZ Enterprise.

eZ Platform is an open source Content Management System (CMS) developed by eZ Systems together with the open source community. eZ Platform's code base is available on GitHub under the GPLv2 license. 

eZ Platform Enterprise Edition (EE) is a commercial software available under eZ Business User License, comprised of eZ Platform Open Source edition and additional features provided as part of the Studio feature set.

The eZ Platform release and support cycle is described below.

We manage the release of eZ Platform using an agile iterative process and a continuous software development model.

There are two kinds of eZ Enterprise releases:

• Long Term Support releases (LTS) which are supported by eZ Systems for a long period of time (see support lifecycle below), for eZ Enterprise subscribers.
• Fast Track releases (FT) which are supported for a short period of time, only until the next FT release is introduced. These are supported for both the open source community and eZ Enterprise subscribers.

Versioning Conventions

eZ Platform Open Source and Enterprise editions use Semantic Versioning.  

eZ Platform and all inner components have a version number following the semantic versioning conventions vX.Y.Z.

• Changes to X, the first digit indicate a breaking change to the API, and developers know that they may need to implement a re-write of their code to continue consuming the API moving forward.
• Y, the middle digit represents new features and functionality.
• Z, The final digit represents patches, bug fixes and other forms of “oops” and “aha!”.

In addition to the version number, we communicate on eZ Platform Enterprise releases using their release name, which provide information on the support and maintenance service availability. Example: eZ Platform Enterprise 2017 for the Long Term Supported release that came mid December 2016 or eZ Platform Enterprise 2017.04 for the Fast Track release that comes in April 2017.

This way, distribution files of our product are as following:

• eZ Platform uses its own unique semantic version number: ezplatform-vX.Y.Z.tgz

• eZ Platform Enterprise uses its semantic version number: ezplatformenterprise-vX.Y.Z.tgz

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lifecycle lifecycle

Support Life Cycle

Our software products are continuously evolving, and we have released many versions over the years.

As we strive to release stable products with cutting-edge technology, there is an obvious need for Software Maintenance services to provide bug fixes as well as adjustments for evolving web technologies. And, as our products always provide new features and possibilities, our documentation and user forums may not always be able to provide an answer to all questions that may arise. That's why our Professional Services Team stands ready to assist.

Over time, existing product versions mature and new versions become the center of attention for customers wanting the latest and greatest in features and extensibility. We adapt to this continuous evolution by phasing out services for the old versions while commencing services for the new ones. This means that our services specific to each release are only available from a given start date until an end date. The time in between the start and end dates is what we call the product's Service Life.

This table provides an overview of the beginning and end of the Service Life of our products*.

• FSM: The First Ship Month we accept installations to start using this version.
• LSM: The Last Ship Month we accept installations to start using this version.
• EOSL: End Of (normal) Service Life, the last month we provide Product Support and Software Maintenance services for a given version.
• SLE: Extended Software Maintenance which includes security updates beyond EOSL. Contact your sales representative for more details.
  • Note: SLE is a "best effort" product with no bug fix guarantee. Hence, under SLE it is not recommended to do new development like redesign, moving to new servers, new server operating system or similar. For such efforts, please upgrade to a version within normal service life first.
• LTS: Long term supported release

_{* For individually agreed lengths of Service Life, please consult your contract. If it goes beyond EOSL it will effectively be valid under the terms of SLE.
** 5.0 was changed to a short term release for new customers when 5.1 came out, thus old contracts have an EOSL in November 2016 but we highly recommend that all existing 5.0 customers upgrade to an LTS release.
*** 5.4 introduces new features in "6.0/Platform stack" and will continue to get certain new features during 2015 to ease forward compatibility with eZ Platform and eZ Studio. For further information see 5.4 release notes.
**** 5.4 being the last eZ Publish release, it will be available for existing eZ Publish customer beyond Last Ship Month (until EOSL), and have an extended service life, making it an ideal release for slow migration to eZ Platform and eZ Studio.}

Roadmap

Our roadmap is updated continuously following our custom ScrumBan iterative development methodology (our own adaptation and combination of Scrum and Kanban). Our agile board is open so that anyone can have a clear view of the ongoing and upcoming development. Progress is based on the prioritized Epics from a living backlog into phases of specification and design, development and documentation, and QA. The final phase of our development includes a dedicated period of Certification and Quality Assurance, which ensures our ability to deliver a stable first version of the professionally supported software.

If you want to know what are the EPICS (big features) we are working on, please look at our dedicated product development board:

How to Read the Board

The Epic board can at first be daunting to understand, so here are some things to be aware of:

• Doc: Means the feature has most likely either been developed already in the last release, or will be in the next one, but might still be missing some documentation.
• Dev: Features in progress, unless just started, they will be part of the next upcoming release (barring some roadblocks).
• Prioritized/Spec: These are the next features we will start working on, prioritization and main responsibility to specify is done by eZ Product Management team.
• Open: A backlog of features we want to have in place in the future.

Work currently in progress

The following list represents the Epics currently in progress and which might make it in the next release.

Next up: Top of the queue 

Below is the first 10 epics we have prioritized to work on next.

Want to Contribute?

Our process being open, please feel free to report bugs or suggest features via our JIRA projects: the EZP Jira project for all things related to eZ Platform, and the EZS Jira project for all things related to eZ Studio (the enhanced version of Platform available only with eZ Enterprise).

If you'd like to help speed things up because you need a feature on a project, Epics in the Open state are relatively safe to jump on. 

1. Simply add a comment on the one you have already worked on or would like to start on among the epics on the board, and folks at eZ will try to help on specifying the feature.
2. For discussions on how to tackle the feature technically, or anything else, reach out on Slack using the self service sign on page.
3. When a Pull request has been opened, most of the discussion will happen in the relevant github repositories.
4. When a feature is done, you can help out on documentation by proposing  documentation  using for instance gist.github.com and link to them via comments on the Epics.