How do releases work re fixes? 7.0.x -> 7.2.x (where's 7.1.x)

[Linwood]

There's a bug that was just fixed (ZBX-24636) and it says the following:

Fix Version/s:
7.0.4rc1, 7.2.0alpha1 (master)

How does that work as new versions roll out. I assume the 7.0.x set will include it going forward. I don't see that any 7.1.x versions have been released, nor 7.2.x.

What puzzles me is the absence of a fix listed in 7.1.x.

The 7.0.4rc1 has flowed out to the Ubuntu distro and I just installed it, and it appears to work.

How will this work as new versions are released to distro.... is there a reason it skipped 7.1 to 7.2? Can I assume that further distro releases will always incorporate this?

[tim.mooney]

Unless the developers mess up and forget to backport a fix to a series OR a future version changes the code enough that the fix isn't even needed, all future versions will include the fix, so you can assume that 7.0.4, 7.0.5, 7.2.0, 7.2.1, etc. will have the fix included.

Surprisingly, neither the Zabbix life cycle nor roadmap pages ( https://www.zabbix.com/life_cycle_and_release_policy , https://www.zabbix.com/roadmap ) appear to cover the version numbering scheme.

Zabbix uses an "even stable, odd development" versioning scheme, similar to what older versions of the Linux kernel used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softwa...pment_releases

You won't see a 7.1.x or 7.3.x version of Zabbix, because those are internal, development releases that are for adding new features. Developers working on the 7.1.0, 7.1.1, 7.1.2 etc. versions are creating the new features that will be released to customers in the stable series 7.2.x. Once the developers believe they have all the planned features implemented and the software is stable enough to release to customers, whatever the 7.1.x version is (let's assume 7.1.2) will be renumbered to be 7.2.0alpha1. More alphas, possibly beta releases (usually don't see that terminology from Zabbix developers) and then release candidate releases (rc1, rc2) will follow, until the 7.2.0 number starts the "we think it's stable" part of the series.

If you look at the roadmap I linked, you'll see that there is no 7.6.x release planned. The 7.5.x development series is what will eventually become 8.0, once all planned features are implemented and it's "stable". The 7.5.x series is the only case where you might see packages with that number that you could download and install. That's because there are generally major changes that go into a new major version, so the development cycle tends to be somewhat longer and testing all the new features and declaring a stable 8.0.0 takes longer, so sometimes packages are created that are still numbered in the 7.5.x devel series. You can try those in a test environment if you want, but you should never run 7.5.x packages in your production environment. Wait until they actually release 8.0. A packaged numbered 7.5.1 might seem just as worthy as any other package number, but it's not.

[cyber]

Surprisingly, neither the Zabbix life cycle nor roadmap pages ( https://www.zabbix.com/life_cycle_and_release_policy , https://www.zabbix.com/roadmap ) appear to cover the version numbering scheme.

But there is a picture on lifecycle page.. And it also explains why there is no .6 or .8 releases.. They just do not fit into timeframe.. .0 is always a LTS, others just short living (in support sense) intermediates...

[Linwood]

Thank you tim.mooney and cyber that explains everything. I should have dug deeper and might have found it.