Software Release Cycles

Discussions debate the frequency and pace of software releases, questioning if cycles are too slow (e.g., every 6 months) or too fast, with references to 'release early, release often' and risks like regressions.

➡️ Stable 0.5x DevOps & Infrastructure
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#1226
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Keywords

BCC KDE JS en.m GNOME OS MAX wikipedia.org RFC release releases early software version cycle weeks stable week features

Sample Comments

nly Apr 12, 2014 View on HN

What's wrong with every every 6 months? It's not like bug fix releases aren't dropped in the meantime.

peterkelly Sep 27, 2022 View on HN

How is releasing a new version every two weeks "slow"?

asb Jul 18, 2013 View on HN

They actually produce a new release every two weeks, it's just you're at a much higher risk of encountering a regression.

PudgePacket Apr 5, 2020 View on HN

It just had a major release :P any faster and people would be complaining about churn !

chris_wot Feb 13, 2018 View on HN

It sounds like they need to issue smaller releases, more frequently.

kazinator Sep 24, 2022 View on HN

Release early and often, but make sure you're fixing something broken each time?

Shalanga Jan 27, 2012 View on HN

Is just me or they take too much time to release new versions? For me it compromise my development.

Tagbert Jun 30, 2020 View on HN

They are on a 6 week release cycle. Every 6 weeks they release the changes that are ready. Sometimes the changes are large, sometimes small. Over time, rapid releases tend to get new features out sooner than delayed releases. Don’t get hung up on the version number. It doesn’t mean this is a major release, it is just the 78th release in a series.

pbreit Feb 7, 2016 View on HN

Are frequent releases some sort of advantage?

diminish Oct 3, 2019 View on HN

Why a major release soon after another one? Fast release cycles?