Before a new release or version of Ansible can be done, it will typically go
through a release candidate process.
This provides the Ansible community the opportunity to test Ansible and report
bugs or issues they might come across.
Ansible tags the first release candidate (``RC1``) which is usually scheduled
to last five business days. The final release is done if no major bugs or
issues are identified during this period.
If there are major problems with the first candidate, a second candidate will
be tagged (``RC2``) once the necessary fixes have landed.
This second candidate lasts for a shorter duration than the first.
If no problems have been reported after two business days, the final release is
done.
More release candidates can be tagged as required, so long as there are
bugs that the Ansible core maintainers consider should be fixed before the
final release.
.._release_freezing:
.._release_freezing:
Feature freeze
Please go to `the devel release and maintenance page <https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/reference_appendices/release_and_maintenance.html>`_ for up to date information.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While there is a pending release candidate, the focus of core developers and
maintainers will on fixes towards the release candidate.
Merging new features or fixes that are not related to the release candidate may
be delayed in order to allow the new release to be shipped as soon as possible.
Deprecation Cycle
`````````````````
Sometimes we need to remove a feature, normally in favor of a reimplementation that we hope does a better job.
To do this we have a deprecation cycle. First we mark a feature as 'deprecated'. This is normally accompanied with warnings
to the user as to why we deprecated it, what alternatives they should switch to and when (which version) we are scheduled
to remove the feature permanently.
The cycle is normally across 4 feature releases (2.x.y, where the x marks a feature release and the y a bugfix release),
..note::
so the feature is normally removed in the 4th release after we announce the deprecation.
For example, something deprecated in 2.5 will be removed in 2.9, assuming we don't jump to 3.x before that point.
The tracking is tied to the number of releases, not the release numbering.
For modules/plugins, we keep the documentation after the removal for users of older versions.
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