Landmark!
After 12 years of research and development, we are making this our first versioned release of the Polis platform!
This version signifies a turning point for the project, where we see the core methodology as stable, and wish to facilitate the growing need for coordination and transparency among an increasing number of partners, but also to free ourselves to continue innovating at the cutting edge of deliberative technology (e.g. Opportunities and Risks and Coherent Mode).
From here on out, we'll be maintaining two main branches of the Polis software:
stable: points to the latest stable release of the software, after having passed QA assessmentedge: the most recent version of the software to have been merged in, and ready (pending QA) for merging intostable(can be assumed to have passed automated testing criteria)
For now, the versioning scheme will look like: major.minor[.patch].
In general, updates will look like:
patch: bugfix; no intended behavior changedminor: new features, without major changes to the underlying algorithm, or significant interface changes (includes new translations or significant translation updates)major: significantly different default algorithmic behavior, participant interface, or other major new functionality
In general minor version bumps will be preferred over major if features don't by default effect either the algorithm or participation interface. This allows us to build under feature flags before official release, giving us an opportunity to launch quickly, perform user testing, and iterate between major version releases as features solidify.
Changes which have been merged to edge but are not yet versioned on stable can be listed at the "edge changes" section at the end of this living document as they are merged in after passing automated testing.
- ...