[COLLECTIONS] Do we need to release a beta after the alpha release? (Was: Re: [VOTE] Release of Commons Collections 4.0-alpha1 based on RC2)

[Benedikt Ritter <br...@apache.org>]

2013/7/2 Thomas Neidhart <th...@gmail.com>

> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 11:02 PM, Benedikt Ritter <br...@apache.org>
> wrote:
>
> <snip>

> >
> > One thing that could be improved is RELEASE-NOTES.txt. I think it would
> be
> > good to make very clear what  "alpha" means (have we agreed on this? I'm
> > not sure). If BC breaking changes are possible but unlikely we should
> > document this in the release notes. However no blocker.
> >
>
> There is a document describing the type of releases to expect from commons:
>
> http://commons.apache.org/releases/versioning.html
>
> Strangely enough, it does not mention alpha releases, but it was discussed
> that alpha releases are the only ones allowing to break BC (apart from
> major releases of course).
> I would have preferred a beta release anyways: better reflects the state of
> the library, do we need a beta after an alpha, or can we directly release
> afterwards?
>

Okay, let's add a section about alpha releases to the versioning page.

About a beta for collections: I'd say let's wait for user feedback. If we
have to break the alpha API as a result to the feedback, let's do a beta
with the final API. If the API can stay the way it is and we only need to
make internal changes we can push out the final release directly after the
alpha.



>
> Thomas
>



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