Release Version Numbering

By Ron Henderson

Revised by Joel Aufrecht

OpenACS docs are written by the named authors, and may be edited by OpenACS documentation staff.

OpenACS version numbers help identify at a high-level what is in a particular release and what has changed since the last release. A "version number" is really just a string of the form:

major.minor.dot[ milestone ]

A complete sequence of milestones between two releases:

5.0.0
5.0.0rc2
5.0.0rc1
5.0.0b4
5.0.0b1
5.0.0a4
5.0.0a3
5.0.0a1
5.0.0d1
4.6.3

Version numbers are also recorded in the CVS repository so that the code tree can be restored to the exact state it was in for a particular release. To translate between a distribution tar file (acs-3.2.2.tar.gz) and a CVS tag, just swap '.' for '-'.The entire release history of the toolkit is recorded in the tags for the top-level readme.txt file:

> cvs log readme.txt
RCS file: /usr/local/cvsroot/acs/readme.txt,v
Working file: readme.txt
head: 3.1
branch:
locks: strict
access list:
symbolic names:
	acs-4-0: 3.1.0.8
	acs-3-2-2-R20000412: 3.1
	acs-3-2-1-R20000327: 3.1
	acs-3-2-0-R20000317: 3.1
	acs-3-2-beta: 3.1
	acs-3-2: 3.1.0.4
	acs-3-1-5-R20000304: 1.7.2.2
	acs-3-1-4-R20000228: 1.7.2.2
	acs-3-1-3-R20000220: 1.7.2.2
	acs-3-1-2-R20000213: 1.7.2.1
	acs-3-1-1-R20000205: 1.7.2.1
	acs-3-1-0-R20000204: 1.7
	acs-3-1-beta: 1.7
	acs-3-1-alpha: 1.7
	acs-3-1: 1.7.0.2
	v24: 1.5
	v23: 1.4
	start: 1.1.1.1
	arsdigita: 1.1.1
keyword substitution: kv
total revisions: 13;	selected revisions: 13
description:
...

In the future, OpenACS packages should follow this same convention on version numbers.

Transition Rules

So what distinguishes an alpha release from a beta release? Or from a production release? We follow a specific set of rules for how OpenACS makes the transition from one state of maturity to the next. These rules are fine-tuned with each release; an example is 5.0.0 Milestones and Milestone Criteria

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