= Smartmontools Release Policy = A few words about smartmontools releases: == Sourcecode == We try to provide source code releases X.Y at least two times a year. ''Please note that odd-numbered releases will no longer be considered "experimental" or "unstable"''. Release candidate tarballs may be provided provided prior to the final release. In this case only bugfix or trivial commits are allowed on the SVN trunk until the final release. For each release a SVN tag named [changeset:3189 RELEASE_X_Y] is created (see also [source:/trunk/smartmontools/do_release do_release script]). After a release X.Y the package version number is [changeset:3190 incremented to X.Y+1] on SVN trunk. If important bugs are reported after X.Y is release, we try to provide [changeset:3054 bugfix releases X.Y.1], X.Y.2, ... as soon as possible. These are build from a SVN branch named [source:/branches/RELEASE_5_39_BRANCH RELEASE_X_Y_BRANCH] created from tag [changeset:3044 RELEASE_X_Y]. Such a branch is maintained at least until the next major release. == Binaries == Precompiled packages are only provided for Windows. For other platforms see [wiki:Download#Installprecompiledpackage Download info]. == Drive Database == The drive database file [source:/trunk/smartmontools/drivedb.h drivedb.h] is maintained on trunk. If new features added to drivedb.h are incompatible with the last major release X.Y, a compatible version is provided on a branch named [source:/branches/RELEASE_5_39_DRIVEDB RELEASE_X_Y_DRIVEDB]. Compatible changes from trunk are frequently [log:/branches/RELEASE_5_39_DRIVEDB merged to this branch]. The [source:/trunk/smartmontools/update-smart-drivedb.in update-smart-drivedb] script checks this branch first.