Dear syslog-ng users, Until 2009 November, the products of BalaBit had long development cycles and major releases of the stable branch (like 2.0 or 3.1) were supported for years. The maintenance releases (e.g., 2.0.10) of stable branches almost always included enhancements as well as bugfixes. This policy has two main drawbacks: - enhancements and new features could potentially destabilize the stable branch, and - larger, and therefore somewhat riskier changes and new features could be released only in the next major release. Starting from November 2009 this will change for every product: major releases will be feature based and more frequent. To avoid the need to support several different versions in parallel, the following support policy is introduced: Stable versions, denoted by a two-digit version number ending with .0 (e.g., 2.0 or 3.0): Stable branches are supported for at least 1 year, but no more than 2 stable versions of a product are supported at the same time. Maintenance releases to the stable branch will contain only bugfixes. Feature versions, denoted by two-digit version number ending with a non-zero version number (e.g., 3.1, 3.2 and onwards): Feature branches will contain enhancements and new features, presumably 1-3 new feature per release. Only the last of the feature releases is supported (e.g., when a new feature release comes out, the last one becomes unsupported), and the last feature release becomes the new stable release. NOTE: Releases of the feature branch are tested just like the stable releases; they are not "unstable" development snapshots. The difference between earlier major releases and current feature releases is the smaller number of features contained in a release, and the shorter support periods. If an unstable snapshot or alpha/beta/rc release will be released for public testing, it will be always marked explicitly as such. WARNING: Downgrading from a feature release to an earlier (and thus unsupported) feature release, or to the stable release is not supported: this means that once you upgrade a system from a stable release (e.g., 2.0) to a feature release (e.g., 2.1), you will have to keep upgrading to the new feature releases until the next stable version release (e.g., 3.0) is published, or risk using an unsupported product. Both the stable and the feature branches will be supported via maintenance (e.g., bugfix) releases. Maintenance releases will have 3 digits in their version number (e.g., 3.1.4), just like previously. Update releases are releases that include only one or two important bugfixes compared to the latest maintenance release, and are marked by an extra letter after the three digit version number (e.g., an update release for release 3.1.7 would be labeled as 3.1.7a). If an update release is published, it is recommended to use it instead of the latest maintenance release. The upgrade page of the product contains the latest versions of the supported branches, including release dates and release notes. The following examples sum up how the version numbers of the future BalaBit releases can be interpreted (the numbers used are for illustration only): 4.0: The current stable release of the product, maintenance releases of this branch will have a third digit (e.g., 4.0.3) 4.0.2: The second maintenance release of the stable 4.0 branch 4.0.2a: The first update release of the second maintenance release of the stable 4.0 branch 4.1: A feature release that is supported only until the release of the next feature release (4.2) 4.1.3: The third maintenance release of the 4.1 feature branch Feature releases and software subscription ------------------------------------------ Buying a BalaBit product allows you to download and use the: current stable release of the product (e.g., 4.0), including its maintenance releases the feature releases of the product (e.g., 4.1, 4.2, etc.). Note that feature releases become unsupported as soon as the next feature release or the next stable release becomes available. Upgrading to the next stable release (e.g., 5.0) requires software subscription. If you plan to use feature releases in a production environment, it is strongly recommended to buy software subscription as well. The first feature release of syslog-ng Premium Edition will be the 3.1 release. Kind Regards, BalaBit