There are quite some features I want to use there but I would wait until they are released a stable version.
Any idea?

Dennis

2.7 branch will never be a stable release.
Eventually we'll get a 2.8 release.

Bart

Bart wrote

2.7 branch will never be a stable release. Eventually we'll get a 2.8 release.

I think that needs to be made to sound more deliberate, for Dennis's benefit. Please could any of the core team jump on me if some detail's wrong, but:

1.x is obsolete, consideration of whether it's stable or unstable isn't relevant.

2.x.y includes both stable and non-stable releases. The non-stable releases in particular include trunk.

Where x is an even number, it's a stable release. So 2.0, 2.2, 2.4 and 2.6 are stable, with 2.8 being the next stable release.

Where x is an odd number, it's not a stable release and should not be used for production purposes: specifically, it should not be used for compiling FPC itself or for compiling Lazarus etc. except as directed by developers.

The same pattern might or might not be followed by the y digit.

I think that trunk is currently 2.7.1. There are some things in trunk which will go into 2.8, others will remain in trunk when it becomes 2.9, others will be removed or left optional for experimentation.

There are cases where a developer will tell you to use a particular release (which might have a non-obvious numeric relationship to the current stable version) to get around a code-generation problem, but otherwise except for testing purposes you should stick to the even numbers.

This echoes the development practice of the Linux kernel, and is increasingly common practice.

You are nearly correct excep:

There are some things in trunk which will go into 2.8, others will remain in trunk when it becomes 2.9, others will be removed or left optional for experimentation.

2.7.1 will become 2.8 sooner or later (*) and what's in trunk at that time will also be in 2.8.0 (and normally we don't deliberately remove things... ^^ ).

* To be more precise: 2.8 will be branched from 2.7.1 and 2.7.1 will then become 2.9.1.

Regards,
Sven

But you do reserve the right to spring surprises on people who use odd-numbered releases incautiously.

I've certainly been forget the detail, but IIRC it was something like an ARM fpu variant which was more robust in 2.5.1 despite 2.6.0 having been released... that example might be inaccurate but I'm just trying to emphasise as part of the FAQ that there are pitfalls for somebody who tries to use odd-numbered releases "just because they're the most recent".

2.7.1 will become 2.8 sooner or later (*) and what's in trunk at that

time will also be in 2.8.0 (and normally we don't deliberately remove things... ^^ ).

what is the timeframe of 'sooner or later'? May I assume Q1 of 2014?

Dennis

I don't remember the FPU part right now, but it might have been shortly after the branch of 2.6.0 and before the renaming of trunk from 2.5.1 to 2.7.1...

Regards,
Sven

Even if we'd branch now it would be around 6 months until a release. AFAIR Jonas already proposed branching 2.8.0 in the near future (this year at best) so this would mean a release in summer 2014 (though this is not a given of course).

Regards,
Sven

My personal view: fairly unlikely. We plan to finish the 2.6.4 release first. I do not expect that we are able to release 2.8.0 so quickly after 2.6.4.

Tomas