Release cycle

Preparing a release needs some time and a proper calendar.

The standard releases are on June 21 for the summer release and December 21 for the winter release.. A count down from these target dates gives:

• feature freeze : ~W-6 / mid-May / mid-November

  • no more features added to darktable
  • only fixes are accepted past this date

• string freeze : ~W-4 / end-May / end-November

  • no more strings changed in the code
  • the translators can start the final translation of all strings

• full freeze : ~W-2 / mid-June / mid-December

  • no more changes to the code or translations
  • the branch for the release is created
  • incomplete translations are removed
  • a tarball is created
  • the packagers can start building the binaries (Linux, Windows, MacOS)

• final release (on the solstices) : June 21st (summer release) / Dec 21st (winter release).