> Release Model
To set expectations, in Tribblix there's a distinction between Updates and Upgrades. Updates are for newer versions of packages, and happen continuously because applications keep being updated. Upgrades are relatively infrequent, involve a new release, and establish a new baseline of applications.
Tribblix follows the "when I feel like it" release model. A release is made when it's felt to be necessary. The definition of necessary can be:
- There's an important feature in illumos that makes upgrading beneficial - that could be security, hardware support, or new programming interfaces.
- There's a breaking or potentially breaking change in the applications that come with Tribblix. Examples here include updating the default compiler, or updating the versions of important runtimes (java, perl, python), or updating key libraries, or removing any functionality.
What this means is that there's no set frequency to releases. That said, something like 3 to 4 months between releases seems to be the settled pattern, although obviously if a security issue needs to be fixed then a release will be made when it's necessary.
In general, any breaking changes will be batched together to reduce the number of releases required. Some releases will have more changes than others. Such changes happen at release boundaries because only then can we be sure that all packages are consistent (for example, that everything depending on software that's changed incompatibly gets rebuilt).
Application updates that don't require a full release will be made immediately.
Essentially any changes in illumos will require an upgrade to a new release.
Once a release is made, all updates will be targeted to the new version. Backporting an application update to an older release is not normally considered.