Release Process and Rules¶
New in version v2.6.2.
Starting with the version to be released after v2.6.2, the following rules
will govern and describe how the Requests core team produces a new release.
Major Releases¶
A major release will include breaking changes. When it is versioned, it will
be versioned as vX.0.0. For example, if the previous release was
v10.2.7 the next version will be v11.0.0.
Breaking changes are changes that break backwards compatibility with prior
versions. If the project were to change the text attribute on a
Response object to a method, that would only happen in a Major release.
Major releases may also include miscellaneous bug fixes. The core developers of Requests are committed to providing a good user experience. This means we’re also committed to preserving backwards compatibility as much as possible. Major releases will be infrequent and will need strong justifications before they are considered.
Minor Releases¶
A minor release will not include breaking changes but may include miscellaneous
bug fixes. If the previous version of Requests released was v10.2.7 a minor
release would be versioned as v10.3.0.
Minor releases will be backwards compatible with releases that have the same
major version number. In other words, all versions that would start with
v10. should be compatible with each other.
Hotfix Releases¶
A hotfix release will only include bug fixes that were missed when the project
released the previous version. If the previous version of Requests released
v10.2.7 the hotfix release would be versioned as v10.2.8.
Hotfixes will not include upgrades to vendored dependencies after
v2.6.2
Reasoning¶
In the 2.5 and 2.6 release series, the Requests core team upgraded vendored dependencies and caused a great deal of headaches for both users and the core team. To reduce this pain, we’re forming a concrete set of procedures so expectations will be properly set.