Re: Future deveploment of Tomcat

["Craig R. McClanahan" <Cr...@eng.sun.com>]

Christian Mallwitz wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Knowing that Tomcat is an onging public effort and that most the people
> working on it are volunteers I would like know if there is something like a
> "release schedule". I've seen discussion about Tomcat 3.3 but  3.2 is still
> beta (working great although) and 4.0 is available as milestone builds.
>
> Will 3.2 release before Christmas?

I am going to create "beta 8" of 3.2 tonight (unless some unforseen new bug pops
up).  If there are no critical bugs found in it (probably a week of testing will
be sufficient), we will release 3.2 final shortly after that.  At worst, I would
expect to see no more than one more beta round.

NOTE:  There will be some outstanding issues with the MOD_JK and AJP13 web
connectors that will not have been fixed in 3.2 final, because no one with the
appropriate knowledge has volunteered to find the problems and propose patches
for them.

>
> What is the plan about 4.0 (Q1 or Q2 2001)?
>

Timing for 4.0 is less certain than for 3.2.

Current thinking is to release a "milestone 5" within the next couple of weeks,
as soon as the web connector code has been checked in and at least minimally
tested.  After that, I am going to suggest a feature freeze on 4.0 and start
doing beta cycles to fix remaining bugs (plus a few low-risk performance
improvements).

Personally, I would love to havea release-quality Tomcat 4.0 for Christmas.
Reality is more likely to be early in 2001.

NOTE:  The servlet 2.3 and JSP 1.2 specifications are *not* final at this point,
and most likely will not be by the time 4.0 is released.  Therefore, we might
need to do some point releases (4.0.1, etc.) to adapt to any changes in the
specs that require Tomcat to be updated.

As soon as 4.0 goes into beta cycles, we will also need to start planning on
what we want to do for 4.1, and when.  These discussions will take place on the
TOMCAT-DEV mailing list, so feel free to subscribe to that list to participate
in the discussions, and/or to stay informed.

>
> Thanks
> Christian

Craig McClanahan