After much public discussion over several months, the Joomla Production Leadership Team (PLT) has made it official. We will release version 3.2 in September 2013 and move the 3.5 release to March 2014. This pattern is expected to continue for the version 4.x releases.
Now, version 2.5 will be the current long-term support (LTS) release for two years (March 2012 to March 2014) instead of 18 months. Here is the revised release schedule through version 4.5.
- Version 2.5: March 2012 (LTS release)
- Version 3.0: September 2012
- Version 3.1: March 2013
- Version 3.2: September 2013
- Version 3.5: March 2014 (LTS release)
- Version 4.0: September 2014
- Version 4.1: March 2015
- Version 4.2: September 2015
- Version 4.5: March 2016 (LTS release)
In discussions on list and at several Joomla events, the response to this proposal was very positive. The PLT believes this change preserves the advantages of the 6-month release cycle while giving LTS users a longer time between major upgrades. Like any prediction of the future, it is subject to change (for example, if the world ends, people stop using the internet, or someone proposes a better plan).
Happy holidays, and may all your upgrades go smoothly!
