What is the difference between Spring's GA, RC and M2 releases?

Question

Spring's 3.0 version is now GA release, before that they have launched 3.0 RC1, RC2 version Also, there was Spring 3.0 M2 version. What's the difference between GA, RC, M versions?

Sulk

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle – Fiddlestick

Answer 1

GA = General availability (a release); should be very stable and feature complete

RC = Release candidate; probably feature complete and should be pretty stable - problems should be relatively rare and minor, but worth reporting to try to get them fixed for release.

M = Milestone build - probably not feature complete; should be vaguely stable (i.e. it's more than just a nightly snapshot) but may still have problems.

SR = Service Release (subsequent maintenance releases that come after major -RELEASE).

Meyers

I see SR versions of Spring, are they Stable Releases? (sp. Spring Data Rest) – Subscript

@Slomojo: Never heard of that - I'd look through the documentation carefully to try to find out. (Service Release perhaps?) – Meyers

It is Service Release, found a little while ago. Thanks for the response. – Subscript

As per ocodo - SR is Service Release, as detailed here: spring.io/blog/2015/06/26/… – Methane

@user1955934: No idea, I'm afraid. (I'd suggest looking in the release history.) – Meyers

What's really confusing is when there are 0.8.0.RC2 and 1.0.0.M7 like for r2dbc-postgres and 1.0.0 milestones appear alongside 0.8.0 RCs. How does that work? – Stopwatch

@yuranos87: That sounds like something to ask for the specific project. – Meyers

@JonSkeet what is difference between milestone build and alpha/beta built ? – Oteliaotero

@BreakingBenjamin: That would probably depend on the project. For Spring itself, I don't know - it's been years since I've used it. – Meyers

@JonSkeet thnx for reply. I was asking in general and not tied to spring project. I mean which is recent - milestone build or alpha ? – Oteliaotero

@BreakingBenjamin: I don't know what you mean by "recent" but again, it would depend on the particular project. There's no general rule for this in my experience. I don't think milestone releases are used as often these days. – Meyers

Answer 2

Refer to Software release life cycle on Wikipedia. The whole life cycle is described in detail.

Councilor

The definitions you gave are in general, which means that it may not be the same as Spring's usage. – Microbicide

It also doesn't explain where the M2 "milestone" fits in. – Verlinevermeer

Answer 3

I think:

• GA - Generally Available, or publicly allowed to brutalized and subjected to intense torture.
• RC- Hmm, these could be a good candidate to release to the public and also see if there are any critical bug remaining.
• M2- Hmm, we have reached the 2nd milestone in our project plan, let's see what the users think and gather some ideas about the bugs that may still persist.

Usually, its Milestone release, then RC releases and then a GA release.

In an Open Source project, you usually would have a public plan for releases, which can actually give you good ideas about the project's release plans. Like, what quality criteria determines a RC, GA or a Milestone release.

Expressionism

race around condition between the answers: Jon Skeet: answered Jan 21 '10 at 7:12 Amit: answered Jan 21 '10 at 7:13 – Zagazig

Answer 4

G.A -> General Availability (Stable, Secure, Compatible for everyone) R.C -> Release Candidate (Stable, Pretty secure, Very low bug, For close developers) E.A -> Early Access (Unstable, Not secure, Buggy, Only for Java SE Engineers)

Diwan