Schedules/KDE4/4.0 Release Roadmap

THIS IS A DRAFT

KDE 4.0 Release Roadmap

Milestone: Subsystem Freeze

Date: 1 April 2007

Goals:

* From this date forward, no major KDE subsystem can be committed to kdelibs.
* The location of all classes are fixed within kdelibs
* Trunk is expected to contain KDE4 code only now. This effectively means
  that all scripts processing translations for KDE3 in trunk will cease.
* Extragear applications that want to release based on KDE3 are expected
  to move to /branches/stable and work from there.
* The buildsystem requirements are fixed; i.e, must not require a
  version of cmake greater than 2.4.5.

Milestone: Alpha Release + kdelibs soft API Freeze

Date: 1 May 2007

Goals:

* Qt 4.3 is required from here until release.
* The kdelibs API is frozen. This means that the classes and interfaces are
  not allowed to change, except with permission of the core developers.
* To make an API change, post a kdelibs API exception request to the
  kde-core-devel mailinglist with an explanation and the code. If there
  are no objections after a week, the change can be committed.
  NOTE: all affected modules must continue to compile and work as expected.

Milestone: Feature Freeze

Date: 1 June 2007

Goals:

* The KDE main modules are frozen for new features.
* No new features are allowed, the focus is on stabilizing the applications
  and fixing all bugs.
* The main module maintainers must indicate if they will follow the release
  schedule or will divert and not be released together with KDE 4.0.

Milestone: Beta Cycle, Full kdelibs API Freeze

Start: 25 June 2007 End: 24 September 2007 Duration: 3 months (estimated)

Goals:

* From this date forward, a Beta Version will be published every month
  until most grave bugs are resolved.
* The kdelibs API is now frozen solid.
* Translations are included starting with the second Beta, thus beginning
  a string freeze. Exceptions can be requested on the kde-i18n mailinglist.

Milestone: Release Candidate Cycle

Start: 25 September 2007 End: 22 October 2007 Duration: 4 weeks (estimated)

Goals:

* From this date forward, a Release Candidate will be released every
  two weeks until *all* grave bugs are resolved.
* After the first Release Candidate there is a total release freeze.
  This means only regressions (breakage caused due to the KDE4 port)
  or grave bugs can be fixed, but nothing else.
* With the first Release Candidate, a list of languages which will be
  included with the KDE 4.0 release will be made available, based on the
  usual rules.

Milestone: KDE 4.0 Released

Date: 23 October 2007

Goals:

* This date is based on an estimated 3 Beta's and 2 Release Candidates.