Frequently Asked Release Engineering Questions

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= Frequently Asked Questions (Release Engineering)

How often are these pages updated? Who updates them?

The main Release wiki pages will be reviewed by the Yocto Project release engineer, half way between each major release and immediately after a major release, to ensure that information is kept up to date.

When is the next major release? When is the next X.X.x release?

We release major releases at a 6 month interval. Generally, odd numbered releases fall sometime in mid-late October, even releases fall mid-late April. The next major release is due out sometime around April 2014.

Point releases are released on an adhoc basis.

How long are point releases supported

We will produce point releases of prior major releases:

  • to fix critical bugs and security issues (CVEs) for the first 6 months after release
  • to fix security issues(CVEs) for the first year after release

From an autobuilder standpoint, we generally maintain autobuilder backwards compatibility for at least 5 major releases. This is slowly getting better, with the goal of being able to be backwards compatible for at least 3 years worth of releases.

Danny? Dylan? Denzil? How can I find out the name of the next Yocto Project major release?

We generally call the next major release by it's major.minor number up until about a month or so prior to the major release. In the spirit of full disclosure, we don't even know the name of the release until Richard Purdie comes up with it.

The https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/Releases page of the wiki has a nice list of release numbers past and present. See that site for information.

Where does the naming convention come from?

It's a secret!

How does the Yocto Project release software?

The Yocto Project's Release Process establishes the full process for both major and point releases.

How do I release my own board support package and put them up on the Yocto Project downloads site?

The Third Party BSP Release Process establishes the full process for BSP releases.

How do I maintain compliance with open source licenses?

Coming Soon

How do I release a product using the Yocto Project?

Coming Soon

meta-jarvis layer? kernel 0.98pl13? What is wrong with you people?

Every major release includes an easter egg or two within the Yocto Project's release notes.

Prior Easter Eggs included:

  • Implementation of a magic smoke generator
  • The meta-jarvis layer for the Iron Man suit
  • The meta-yocto-classic layer, which includes mc.

Most of these are inside project jokes. For example, our community manager, Jeff "jefro" Osier-Mixon bears a resemblance to Robert Downey Jr. Richard Purdie has a love of mc. They're generally pretty obvious jokes, except when they're not.