[dot] KDE 4.0 Release Schedule Finalised

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1174481326/

From: Sebastian Kügler <sebas at kde.org>
Dept: prenatal-planning
Date: Wednesday 21/Mar/2007, @05:48

KDE 4.0 Release Schedule Finalised
==================================

   The KDE Community and the release team have put together a release
plan for the long anticipated version 4.0, which is planned to be
released in October 2007.  KDE 4.0 will be a major milestone for the
Free Desktop, as it offers a new foundation and set of frameworks that
will shape the desktop user experience for years to come. Users will
benefit from improved speed through Qt 4, integration of hardware
through Solid [http://solid.kde.org], multimedia performance via Phonon
[http://phonon.kde.org], usability enhancements by close collaboration
with OpenUsability [http://www.openusability.org], new real-time
communication options with Decibel [http://decibel.kde.org],
spell-checking with Sonnet, comprehensive desktop search through Strigi
[http://www.vandenoever.info/software/strigi/] and Nepomuk
[http://nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org/], a new desktop metaphor through
Plasma [http://plasma.kde.org] and, last but not least, a completely new
artwork experience called Oxygen [http://www.oxygen-icons.org].

     KDE 4.0 will likely contain initial versions of all the major
subsystems that have been described in recent Dot articles.  These
"Pillars" of KDE set the stage for desktop and application growth and
maturity over the life of the KDE 4 series. The release schedule
contains a number of milestones and dates, the most important of those
being:

    *  April 1, 2007:  Subsystem Freeze  From
      this date forward, no new KDE subsystem or major changes can be
      committed to kdelibs.
    *  May 1, 2007: Alpha Release + kdelibs soft API Freeze
       Alpha will be a source-only release without
      translations. The kdelibs API is "soft-frozen", meaning that
      changes can be made but only with the consent of the core
      developers.
    *  June 1, 2007: trunk/KDE is feature frozen
      Trunk is frozen for feature commits. Internationalised string
      changes are allowed. A list of main modules that will be included
      in the final release will be made.
    *   June 25, 2007: Beta1  Beta 1 is prepared
      and released after some initial testing. The incoming bugs will be
      reviewed for their severity. After this release, a new Beta
      version will be released every month.
    *  September 23, 2007: Total Release Freeze
      This is the very last date for committing anything that isn't
      reviewed on the development lists.
    *  September 25, 2007: Release Candidate 1
      Targetted date for first release candidate. Only regressions
      (breakage caused by the KDE 4 port) or grave bugs can be fixed.
      Starting with this Release Candidate, a new Release Candidate will
      be put out every two weeks until the codebase is sufficiently
      stable and all showstopper bugs have been fixed.
    *  October 23, 2007: Targetted Release Date

     As always, the KDE community welcomes involvement with
translations, documentation, testing and promotions.  Developers who
want to contribute to make KDE 4 even more rocking should check out
techbase.kde.org [http://techbase.kde.org], the new platform for all
development-related information about KDE and its technologies.

     A more detailed version of the release roadmap can be found on
techbase [http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.0_Release_Roadmap]. 
More and updated information about the release schedule can be found on
the Release Schedule webpage.
 [http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.0_Release_Schedule]