What is a spring milestone?

Question

I have to learn to work with Maven and Spring. Around the web I have seen in various places the term " spring milestones" and "spring milestones repository". But was is a such a milestone ? I googled it, but I didn't find that one definition to satisfy my curiosity. Can anyone help me?

Gibran

#2107984 – Fitzgerald

@BoristheSpider and why does it need a plugin-repository ? – Gibran

Thank you very much Boris :) I understood everything. Thank you for your time – Gibran

@BoristheSpider would you like to post your comment as an answer, so I can accept it ? – Gibran

Answer 1

A milestone is a project management term.

In order to produce a final release, code would go through several milestones as key features are implemented.

Once all new features are implemented, the code would then usually go through various pre-release stages, such as betas and release candidates. When everyone is happy, a final version is released and the whole process begins again.

In Spring land this process goes:

• Mx for a Milestone release, sequentially numbered
• RCx for a Release Candidate, sequentially numbered
• GA for "General Availability" release - the final version

See this other SO answer for details on the different types.

OP asks: and why does it need a plugin-repository?

Now, the Spring Milestone repo is a standard Maven repo - plugin or otherwise doesn't matter overmuch.

It's policy at Spring to publish milestone releases to the general public for those interested in testing them. Almost all publishing of Java binary artefacts is done on Maven these days. Hence these milestones are published into a Maven repo.

To make clear that these milestones releases are not to be used in production code they are published to a separate repo rather than Maven Central. Basically, don't use milestones unless you know what you are doing. And expect bugs.

For more information on how Spring manages its repositories it's worth having a look at the Spring repository FAQ

Kinkajou

Thanks @Boris. I was looking for it today. My key take away was - these milestones releases are not to be used in production code and don't use milestones unless you expect bugs. :) – Sporting

Came here after finding this "our current plan is to release 2.3.0 GA on May 14" on spring website. Does this statement mean, 2.3.0 will be available on maven central repo for production use? – Bucci