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  12 <title>Subversion Roadmap</title>
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  17
  18 <h1 style="text-align: center">Subversion Roadmap</h1>
  19
  20 <div class="h2" id="upcoming-releases" title="upcoming-releases">
  21 <h2>Upcoming Releases</h2>
  22
  23 <p>For a schedule of upcoming releases, please see the <a
  24 href="project_status.html">project status</a> page.</p>
  25
  26 </div>
  27
  28 <div class="h2" id="release-planning" title="release-planning">
  29 <h2>How We Plan Releases</h2>
  30
  31 <p>Subversion uses a compromise between time-driven and feature-driven
  32 release planning.  We schedule the next release for an approximate
  33 date (very approximate), and make sure it contains one or more new
  34 features or other significant differentiators, but we don't say
  35 exactly what those new features will be.  This is because we're always
  36 working on several things at once, and we want to give each new
  37 feature time to mature.  Especially given the decentralized nature of
  38 open-source development, we're wary of forcing technical discussions
  39 to premature consensus.  At the same time, it's good for the project
  40 to have regular releases, so we try to keep to a schedule and to
  41 have <i>something</i> ready to roll out when the release date comes
  42 along.</p>
  43
  44 <p>In this context, "release" means an increment of the minor release
  45 number, which is the middle number in our three-component system.
  46 Thus, 1.2.0, 1.3.0, and 1.4.0 are successive minor releases in the
  47 "1.x" line, whereas 1.1.1, 1.1.2, and 1.1.3 are successive patch
  48 (bugfix) releases in the "1.1.x" line.  We don't schedule patch
  49 releases far in advance, we just put them out when we feel enough
  50 bugfixes have accumulated to warrant it.  Major new releases, such as
  51 Subversion 2.0, will probably be done much like the minor releases,
  52 just with more planning around the exact features.  For more
  53 information about Subversion's release numbering and compatibility
  54 policies, see the section entitled <i>"Release numbering,
  55 compatibility, and deprecation"</i> in the
  56 <a href="hacking.html">Hacker's Guide to Subversion</a>.</p>
  57
  58 </div>
  59
  60 <div class="h2" id="upcoming-features" title="upcoming-features">
  61 <h2>Upcoming Features</h2>
  62
  63 <p>We try to have at least one or two new features under active
  64 development at any given time, but we generally don't rush a feature
  65 to get it into a release.  The flexibly time-driven model <a
  66 href="#release-planning">described above</a> means there's never a
  67 long wait between releases, which in turn means less pressure to cram
  68 a feature into whatever release happens to be going out the door next.
  69 Our main source of ideas is our users: we watch the <a
  70 href="mailto:users@subversion.tigris.org"
  71 >users@subversion.tigris.org</a> mailing list, the <a
  72 href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#svn">#svn IRC channel</a>, and the <a
  73 href="project_issues.html">issue tracker</a> to see what people are
  74 saying, and base our priorities on that, though we may sometimes grab
  75 low-hanging fruit along the way.</p>
  76
  77 <p>Below are new features currently under discussion and design, as
  78 extracted from the ever-changing consensus of the Subversion developer
  79 community.  Because this is a volunteer open-source project, it's hard
  80 to predict exact dates or timetables for these new features.  At most,
  81 we can express dependencies and predict the order in which things will
  82 be worked on.  <em>Just because a feature is listed for a particular
  83 release does not guarantee that it will be in that release.</em>  Hard
  84 feature lists don't actually get set until the <a
  85 href="release-process.html#release-branches">release branch</a> is
  86 created.  The best way to track development is to <a
  87 href="/servlets/ProjectMailingListList">subscribe</a> to the
  88 development mailing list, <a href="mailto:dev@subversion.tigris.org"
  89 >dev@subversion.tigris.org</a>.</p>
  90
  91 <ul>
  92
  93 <li><b>Medium-term Goals:</b>
  94   <ul>
  95     <li>1.5
  96       <ul>
  97         <li>Merge tracking: tracking of merge history (see
  98         <a href="merge-tracking/">info</a>)</li>
  99
 100         <li>Sparsely populated checkouts (full API and basic
 101         command-line support coming in 1.5)</li>
 102       </ul>
 103     </li>
 104
 105     <li>1.6
 106       <ul>
 107         <li>Augmented diff representation (svnpatch)</li>
 108
 109         <li>Python C-types bindings</li>
 110       </ul>
 111     </li>
 112
 113     <li>Eventually
 114       <ul>
 115         <li>Improved rename support (see <a
 116         href="http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=898"
 117         >issue #898</a>)</li>
 118
 119         <li>Log message templates  (see <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/BrowseList?list=dev&amp;by=thread&amp;from=325870"
 120         >discussion thread</a>)</li>
 121
 122         <li>Repository-defined autoprops (see <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/BrowseList?list=dev&amp;by=thread&amp;from=329707"
 123         >discussion thread</a>)</li>
 124
 125         <li>Inherited properties (see <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/BrowseList?list=dev&amp;by=thread&amp;from=326933"
 126         >discussion thread</a>)</li>
 127
 128         <li>Rewrite the working-copy library to feature centralized metadata
 129         storage</li>
 130       </ul>
 131     </li>
 132   </ul>
 133 </li>
 134
 135 <li><b>Long-term Goals</b>
 136   <ul>
 137     <li><p>hybrid distributed/centralized VC model</p></li>
 138     <li><p>repository-level ACLs</p></li>
 139     <li><p>broader WebDAV/deltaV compatibility</p></li>
 140     <li><p>improved pluggable client-side diff (see <a
 141     href="http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2044">issue
 142     #2044</a>)</p></li>
 143     <li><p>progressive multi-lingual support</p></li>
 144     <li><p>SQL repository back-end?</p></li>
 145   </ul>
 146 </li>
 147
 148 </ul>
 149
 150 </div>
 151
 152 <div class="h2" id="past-releases" title="past-releases">
 153 <h2>Past Releases</h2>
 154
 155 <p>For information about past releases, see the <a
 156 href="project_status.html">project status</a> page.</p>
 157
 158 <p>To see a summary of the major changes in each Subversion release,
 159 read over the <a
 160 href="http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/CHANGES">CHANGES</a>
 161 file.</p>
 162
 163 </div>
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