Branches

eZ Publish consists of multiple branches, each branch defines a set of features which is constant throughout the branch. A branch consists of multiple releases.

Releases

Alpha releases are created during the implementation of new features to allow early testing. These often lack features promised in the final release and are considered quite unstable.

Beta releases are created once all the new features have been implemented. A beta version is likely to be unstable. The testers of these releases report any bugs that they found and sometimes minor features they would like to see in the final version.

A release candidate is a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs emerge. At this stage, all the new features are implemented and tested, all known important bugs are fixed.

Stable releases are created after the branch is considered stable which means that all major bugs and hurdles have been removed. Generally, the database schema is not changed within stable release branches. However, exceptions are made for changes that are needed for important bugs and enhancements.

Overview

The following diagram shows the various branches and releases that have been made for eZ Publish and indicates the upgrade path from one branch to another.

All eZ Publish releases and their upgrade paths.

Upgrades

The arrows show the upgrade paths that are supported by eZ Publish. If you have a stable release which does not have a direct upgrade path, you can use the upgrade path from a previous stable release in the same branch. Note that you might have to skip some parts of the database upgrade scripts if the database schema was changed from previous stable releases within the same branch. For more information about which parts to skip, refer to the upgrade instructions of the version to which you are upgrading.