Release Process

Describes the process followed for "core" releases (mainly the sapphire and cms modules). For other modules, we've compiled a helpful guide for a good module release process.

Release Maintainer

The current maintainer responsible for planning and performing releases is Ingo Schommer (ingo at silverstripe dot com).

Release Planning

Our most up-to-date release plans are typically in the roadmap. New features and API changes are typically discussed on the core mailinglist. They are prioritized by the core team as tickets on open.silverstripe.org.

Release dates are usually not published prior to the release, but you can get a good idea of the release status by reviewing the release milestone on open.silverstripe.org. Releases will be announced on the release announcements mailing list.

Releases of the cms and sapphire modules are coupled at the moment, they follow the same numbering scheme. Module releases are documented separately in module-release-process.

Release Numbering

Versions are numbered by major version number, minor version number, and micro version number, in the form A.B.C (e.g. 2.4.1)
A is the major version number, which is only incremented for major changes and core rewrites, lots of them won't be backwards compatible.
B is the minor version number. It is incremented for our typical releases with new features and bugfixes. We strive for few changes to be backwards incompatible, and will deprecate any APIs before removing them.
C is the micro version number, incremented for bugfixes, minor enhancements and security fixes. Unless security-related, all changes will be fully backwards compatible to the minor version number.
Major and minor releases have an alpha cycle, which is a preview developer release which that see major changes until release. It is followed by a beta cycle, which is feature complete and used by the wider development community for stability and regression testing. Naming convention is A.B.C-alpha and A.B.C-beta.
Major, minor and micro releases can have one or more release candidates (RC), to be used by the wider community. A release candidate signifies that the core team thinks the release is ready without further changes. The actual release should be a identical copy of the latest RC. Naming convention is A.B.C-rc1 (and further increments).
Major releases may have a preview cycle which is a early snapshot of the codebase for developers before going into the alpha cycle. Preview releases are named A.B.C-pr1 (and further increments).

Major releases

So far, major releases have happened every couple of years. Most new releases are minor version number or micro version number increments. So far, we only had one major release, from the 1.x to the 2.x line.

Minor releases

Minor releases have happened about once every 18 months. For example, 2.3 was released in February 2009, followed by 2.4 in May 2010.

These releases will contain new features, general enhancements and bugfixes. APIs from previous minor releases can be deprecated, but will stay available for one more minor release. So, if an API is deprecated in A.B, it will continue to work in A.B+1, and removed in A.B+2.

An example: Say we'd want to rename BasicAuth::requireLogin() to follow our coding conventions, which is BasicAuth::require_login(). The method was introduced in 2.1, we've made the change in 2.3?

2.3 would've marked the method as @deprecated, and documents it as an API CHANGE in our changelog. The old method continues to work, but will throw an E_USER_NOTICE.
2.4 would've removed the method, also documenting it as an API CHANGE, and mentioning it in the upgrading guidelines.

Exceptions to the deprecation cycle are APIs that have been moved into their own module, and continue to work with the new minor release. These changes can be performed in a single minor release without a deprecation period.

Micro releases

Micro releases are issued about every two months for the latest release, typically for security reasons. You can safely upgrade to those releases (after reading the upgrading guidelines). For example, 2.3.6 was released in February 2010, followed by 2.3.7 in March 2010.

Supported versions

At any point in time, the core development team will support a set of releases to varying levels:

The current development trunk will get new features and bug fixes that might require major refactoring before going into a release (Note: At the moment, bugfixing and feature development might happen on the current release branch, to be merged back to trunk regularly).
Applicable bugfixes on trunk will also be merged back to the last minor release branch, to be released as the next micro release.
Security fixes will be applied to the current trunk and the previous two minor releases (e.g. 2.3.8 and 2.4.1).

Deprecation

Needs of developers (both on core framework and custom projects) might outgrow the capabilities of a certain API. Existing APIs might turn out to be hard to understand, maintain, test or stabilize. In these cases, it is best practice to "refactor" these APIs into something more useful. SilverStripe acknowledges that developers have built a lot of code on top of existing APIs, so we strive for giving ample warning on any upcoming changes through a "deprecation cycle".

How to deprecate an API:

Add a @deprecated item to the docblock tag, with a {@link <class>} item pointing to the new API to use.
Update the deprecated code to throw an E_USER_NOTICE error, with a message starting with the string 'DEPRECATED:'.
In time, we may use that string to identify deprecation errors, so please ensure that you add this string to the notice level error.
Make sure that the old deprecated function works by calling the new function - don't have duplicated code!
Mark in which release the function was deprecated (find out next release in the roadmap), so we can determine when to finally remove it. Here's an example for replacing Director::isDev() with a (theoretical) Env::is_dev():

:::php /**
- Returns true if your are in development mode
- @deprecated (since 2.2.2) Use {@link Env::is_dev()} instead. */ public function isDev() { user_error("DEPRECATED: Use Env::is_dev() instead.", E_USER_NOTICE); return Env::is_dev(); }
Deprecated APIs can be removed after developers had a chance to react to the changes. As a rule of thumb, leave the code with the deprecation warning in for at least three micro releases. Only remove code in a minor or major release. For example:
- Deprecated as of in 2.2.2
- Still deprecated in 2.2.3
- Still deprecated in 2.2.4
- Removed from 2.3.0

Security Releases

Reporting an issue

Report security issues to security@silverstripe.com. Please don't file security issues in our bugtracker.

Acknowledgement and disclosure

In the event of a confirmed vulnerability in SilverStripe core, we will take the following actions:

Acknowledge to the reporter that we’ve received the report and that a fix is forthcoming. We’ll give a rough timeline and ask the reporter to keep the issue confidential until we announce it.
Halt all other development as long as is needed to develop a fix, including patches against the current and one previous major release (if applicable).
We will inform you about resolution and announce a new release publically.

You can help us determine the problem and speed up responses by providing us with more information on how to reproduce the issue: SilverStripe version (incl. any installed modules), PHP/webserver version and configuration, anonymized webserver access logs (if a hack is suspected), any other services and web packages running on the same server.

Severity rating

Each security release includes an overall severity rating and one for each vulnerability. The rating indicates how important an update is:

Severity	Description
Critical	Critical releases require immediate actions. Such vulnerabilities allow attackers to take control of your site and you should upgrade on the day of release. Example: Directory traversal, privilege escalation
Important	Important releases should be evaluated immediately. These issues allow an attacker to compromise a site's data and should be fixed within days. Example: SQL injection.
Moderate	Releases of moderate severity should be applied as soon as possible. They allow the unauthorized editing or creation of content. Examples: Cross Site Scripting (XSS) in template helpers.
Low	Low risk releases fix information disclosure and read-only privilege escalation vulnerabilities. These updates should also be applied as soon as possible, but with an impact-dependent priority. Example: Exposure of the core version number, Cross Site Scripting (XSS) limited to the admin interface.

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