[SpamAssassin Wiki] New: NextRelease

[sp...@incubator.apache.org]

   Date: 2004-04-13T12:52:27
   Editor: 130.15.202.115 <>
   Wiki: SpamAssassin Wiki
   Page: NextRelease
   URL: http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/NextRelease

   no comment

New Page:

== When is the next version of SpamAssassin going to be released? ==

Short answer: When it's ready.

Longer answer: Probably sooner if you help.

Because of the way SpamAssassin's default scores are determined, it generally takes a lot longer to release major versions (i.e. x.x.0 or x.x0) than we'd like. Here are the major steps we take before a release.

 1. All the bugs that we agree need to be done for the next release need to be fixed. (For 3.0.0, you can look at [http://bugzilla.spamassassin.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3208 bug 3208], you can also query for bugs where the target milestone is 3.0.0)
 2. We need to enter a rule freeze and run 3 mass-checks (MassCheck) and perceptron runs to optimize the rule scores. Since these mass-checks require volunteers from around the world to run SpamAssassin over very large volumes of mail, these generally take about a week each.
 3. We need roughly two weeks of testing to eradicate any major bugs that creep in. (It's difficult to test SpamAssassin before the mass-checks are done because the scores are generally quite poor, making it relatively unusable on real mail.) During this time we will generally distribute release-candidate (RC) releases for wider testing. Test these!
 4. If all goes well, we release.

Minor releases tend to have a lot shorter release schedule as only important bug fixes happen and the scores (usually) stay the same.

How can you help? Simple. Fix bugs. Log into [http://bugzilla.spamassassin.org Bugzilla] and browse through the bugs that are holding up the release. Fix them and attach patches to the bugs. (You may need to also fill out and send in a [http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas Contributor License Agreement] before we can use your patch.) Also, WeLoveVolunteers.