Alan, Beautifully said.
Jeff > It has been my experience that milestone releases were snapshots of > software that was in the alpha stage. The snapshots were taken at > meaningful times where the feature set was thought to be compelling and > self consistent for those who wanted to take an early peek. It is > important to stress that this was *alpha* software and not feature > complete. Milestone releases were not supported, i.e. patches were > *never* made. Milestone snapshots were made off the trunk. Tags were > made, but quickly removed after the next milestone was hit, for the > purposes of development in case of a regression. A modicum of testing > was done on the milestone to make sure that it at least started. > > Release candidates were snapshots of beta software. The trunk is > branched and the release candidates were snapshots of this branch. > These snapshots were thought to be feature complete but it was > understood that a certain amount of QA effort needed to be made to > ensure a certain amount of quality. During beta, all feature additions > were frozen. Release candidate themselves were not supported. Tags > were made, but quickly removed after the next release candidate was > released, for the purposes of development. > > Once it was agreed that the last RC was of an acceptable quality, it was > made into the official release tag. > > To recap, milestone and release candidates are both useful at different > times. Milestones are alpha snapshots and are not supported. Release > candidates are snapshots of beta software and are not supported. The > last release candidate that is officially released is what is supported. > > > Regards, > Alan > > >
