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Update release cycle information

jonathansadowski 2023-03-03 15:09:51 -06:00
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Roadmap-and-release-process.md

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WooCommerce has a minor release (e.g., 3.1, 3.2) every 3-4 months, typically per quarter. Each cycle consists of: WooCommerce is released on a monthly cadence, with releases planned for the second Tuesday of each month. The release process starts four weeks prior to each planned release, when we release the first beta of the upcoming release. For example, WooCommerce 7.4 [was released on February 14, 2023](https://developer.woocommerce.com/2023/02/14/woocommerce-7-4-released/), the second Tuesday in February. The first beta for the 7.4 cycle [was released 4 weeks prior to that](https://developer.woocommerce.com/2023/01/24/woocommerce-7-4-beta-1/), on January 24, 2023.
- 4-6 weeks development (1 sprint per week) During our four week release cycle, we release additional beta releases as necessary to address any issues we may uncover during the testing process. You can keep up to date on the release of each beta by following the [developer blog](https://developer.woocommerce.com).
- 2-4 weeks beta testing
- 2-4 weeks release candidate period and feature freeze
Each new release has a corresponding milestone on Github, with a description explaining the main goals of the release, and a planned release date. Example: [3.2 Milestone on Github](https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/milestone/70). In each release cycle, we aim to release a release-candidate approximately one week prior to the final release. Our goal is that the most-recent release-candidate be as close to our planned final release package as possible, and at this stage we aim to only address bugs and issues that we've found within the release cycle.
Major releases (e.g., 3.0, 4.0) are less frequent and typically will be announced with at least 3 months warning, with the features already developed and announced separately thus being available for testing as soon as possible. The best place to stay up to date with the complete release cycle is on the [developer blog](https://developer.woocommerce.com). We will create posts for each release, and those posts contain information about the release, as well as links to the testing instructions for each release.
Patch versions (e.g., 3.1.1, 3.1.2) are released on an as-needed basis, usually to address bugs or regressions. Patch versions are documented on the [dev blog](https://woocommerce.wordpress.com/) and also have a milestone on Github to track issues.
Major new features or updates are developed as **feature plugins** first before being merged into core. A good example of this is the [WC API](https://github.com/woocommerce/wc-api-dev) in which the next major version is developed separately. This allows for:
- Faster feature iteration with less risk.
- More contribution opportunities, including opportunities to manage a project.
- Reduced maintenance burden for core, and less risk of backwards compatibility issues.
## Backward Compatibility ## Backward Compatibility