Regarding RC3 and RC4

[Suki]

Dear SMF Community,

Since the release of the last Release Candidate (RC) for the 2.1.x branch of SMF, we have been continuing the development of this new version on GitHub. There are 267 issues tagged for RC3 that have already been closed, meaning that those issues have already been solved and any fixes have been implemented. There are just two issues which remain tagged for RC3, and these are currently being reviewed by the developers.

As you may have noticed, there is now a Release Candidate 4. This is a change from the previous plan, which has resulted in almost every issue that was tagged for 'Final' now being tagged for RC4. The reasons why we have decided to go for another Release Candidate are as follows:

- Number of issues to test: When RC3 is released, it will include a total of 269 fixed issues. This is a significant number and we believe that having another milestone would be better for testing everything that we have added to ensure that the fixes have been implemented successfully, instead of going directly to 'Final'.

- Limiting the scope: We want to ensure that the release time between RC3 and 'Final' is as short as possible. Even though we have tagged almost every issue for RC4, if a new arises that is not related to Security, Upgrade, Calendar or Database, it will be tagged for 'Final'. Also, we have a number of issues which have been tagged for RC4 that already have a fix awaiting them as part of the release of RC3.  On that basis, the number of outstanding issues will decrease significantly as soon as RC3 has been released.

- Potential experiment with 'release early, release fairly often': in view of a clear roadmap and the limits having been established for RC4, we might try to see if we can experiment with and achieve this kind of approach.  If we can make this work to our satisfaction, it might help us to develop the software more quickly and efficiently for future versions and patches.  Please note that this is neither a guarantee nor a promise, but it is an idea that we are hoping to implement if possible.

Thank you for your patience.

Kind regards,
The SMF Team

[Arantor]

Good to hear. Please let's have more such updates in future.

[SpacePhoenix]

Can a link to the "nightly build" version of 2.1 RC3 be added to he downloads page?

[Suki]

Since we don't officially offer support (offer update packages) for release candidates we don't provide links for nightly builds on the downloads section, however and for those users that understand and are OK with running an RC on their own theres an unofficial nightly build on the 2.1 support board.

[Antechinus]

I gather from the comments on GitHub that RC3 is basically a done deal, and is just waiting for someone to deal with the final pull request.

[SD-X]

Thank you for the progress update and communication!!!

[Ramón Cutanda]

Thank you for the update. It is much appreciated!

[-Rock Lee-]

I have no excuse for not testing 2.1 on a test site, I hope everything turns out great !

[landyvlad]

A very welcome update - thank you so much!

[shinglis]

Thanks for the update.

[forumovod]

Yesterday I installed SMF 2.1 RC2 with github, and it turns out to be almost RC3

[SD-X]

Yesterday I installed SMF 2.1 RC2 with github, and it turns out to be almost RC3

That isn't RC2. That is a development build in between RC2 and RC3.

[Doug Heffernan]

Thank you for the update Suki. Keep up the great work

[forumovod]

Yesterday I installed SMF 2.1 RC2 with github, and it turns out to be almost RC3

That isn't RC2. That is a development build in between RC2 and RC3.

Screenshot installed SMF 2.1 with github.

[Antechinus]

Yes, because the RC3 build hasn't been released yet, so they haven't bothered changing the version number in the footer yet. It's still a dev build.

[GravuTrad]

Really great news. Thanks Suki. (lead suki!)

[SD-X]

Yesterday I installed SMF 2.1 RC2 with github, and it turns out to be almost RC3

That isn't RC2. That is a development build in between RC2 and RC3.

Screenshot installed SMF 2.1 with github.

That is NOT RC2. RC2 was built at a specific point in time with the code. Anything taken off of GitHub since then is a later development build. As Antechinus said, RC3 hasn't been released yet, so the number hasn't changed. They don't update the number immediately after releasing a new version just to call it a development version in the repository.

The only way to get the actual RC2 version is by downloading it here:
https://download.simplemachines.org/

Or here:
https://github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF2.1/releases/tag/v2.1-rc.2

Note the date and tag on the second link.

[forumovod]

That is NOT RC2.

If this is not a RC2, then why does it indicate that it is a RC2?

[SychO]

That is NOT RC2.

If this is not a RC2, then why does it indicate that it is a RC2?

Because as it has been explained before, it only says RC2 because the version number is changed right before an official release is made, so the build you're using from github is technically not RC2 and is instead a development build between RC2 and RC3.

[Antes]

That is NOT RC2.

If this is not a RC2, then why does it indicate that it is a RC2?

Because git-builds are not compiled officially to reflect the latest build number in the footer section. So till RC3 release, team does not change the version numbers in the file(s).