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FLOSS Web Applications with the fastest release cycles

Eric S. Raymond wrote:


Tiki is among the Free/Libre/Open Source Software Web Applications with the fastest release cycles

When Version number (click to see what's new in this version)
2002-10 0.9 (first public release)
2002-10 Changelog 1.0
2002-11 Changelog 1.1
2002-11 Changelog 1.2
2002-12 Changelog 1.3
2002-12 Changelog 1.4
2003-02 Changelog 1.5
2003-05 Changelog 1.6 This was the 8th release and the printed version of the manual for 1.6 was 350 pages!
2003-08 Changelog 1.7
2004-02 Changelog 1.8
2005-04 Changelog 1.9 The printed version was at 960 pages, so we stopped the habit of printing it all 😊
2008-08 2.0
2009-05 3.0 LTS
2009-11 4.0
2010-06 5.0
2010-11 6.0 LTS
2011-06 7.0
2011-11 8.0
2012-06 9.0 LTS
2012-12 10.0
2013-07 11.0
2013-11 12.0 LTS
2014-08 13.0
2015-05 14.0
2016-04 15.0 LTS
2016-11 16.0
2017-07 17.0
2018-01 18.0 LTS


Thus, 27 releases in 15 years! and this doesn't count minor releases. The total of major and minor releases is approximately 100, which you can see at: All Releases

Some history: Tiki started out with an all-in-one model with a very rapid release cycle. Then, in late 2004, a mods system (An extensions system which is common in web apps) was introduced for branch 1.9. While this had some benefits, it also added a lot of complexity (versioning of mods, making sure mods are in sync with main code base, etc), and this was a contributing factor to the 3 year delay between 1.9 and 2.0. In 2008, at TikiFest2008-Strasbourg, community members decided to move to a rapid and predictable release cycle, with Long Term Support (LTS) versions. The numbering system was changed to be more representative of reality. How can a software application with a manual of nearly 1000 pages be at only version 1.9?

Advantage of all-in-one model

A number of other open source CMS have moved to a more rapid release cycle with LTS, but Tiki's all-in-one model has advantages compared with the extension-based model of other systems. In Tiki, all features are ready at the same time while with other extension-based systems, it is often the case that not all features are ready at the same time, and too often, extensions are never ported to the next version. Thanks to the Tiki model, we have inherent synchronized releases and easy upgrades. See: http://pluginproblems.com/

See also: Version Lifecycle and FLOSS Web Application with the most built-in features

List of the fastest

See also

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