Dear list, As announced previously in a message that was probably missed (<https://www.mail-archive.com/lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org/msg196237.html>), and after discussions, I have created a branch, kept in sync with master, which reads and writes the stable format, together with a documentation of the workflow for maintaining such a branch. I would like to push it to the main repository on an experimental basis.
This branch is meant to open testing of master features to a wider audience, either because compatibility with the stable format is required, or because it is found safer to constantly have stable as a fallback. It is also meant as an experiment to prove that it is possible and even easy to maintain such a branch. A second step will be to create an Ubuntu PPA for it to increase its audience. Using it daily allowed me in several occasions to find bugs in master, and also in several occasions we have noticed that feedback on a new feature came very late, after much effort was already spent on it. I hope this branch will help with the situation. Sincerely, Guillaume