- LyX uses a continuous numbering scheme in which odd or
- even numbering is not significant. Instead a number '1.x.y'
- indicates stable release '1.x', fix level 'y'. Prereleases
- are labeled with a "pre" suffix. Thus there are three possible
- file names:
-
- lyx-1.4.0.tar.gz -- stable release
- lyx-1.4.5.tar.gz -- fifth maintenance release of the
- 1.4 stable release
- lyx-1.4.0pre1.tar.gz -- potentially unstable test release
-
- The maintenance releases are designed primarily to fix bugs. The
- goal here is not to have parallel development as for the linux
- kernel (the team is too small to afford that), but rather to
- include all the simple (so that the maintenance burden on us
- is not too high) and safe (so that system administrators can
- install them without fear) bug fixes. Experience shows that
- these releases will contain a few new features, and that the
- bulk of the patches will be documentation updates.
-
- If you get the source from cvs, the version string will look like
- one of:
-
- 1.4.1cvs -- this is the stable branch on which maintenance
- release 1.4.1 will eventually be tagged.
- 1.5.0cvs -- this is the main branch on which stable
- release 1.5.0 will eventually be tagged.
+ LyX uses a contiguous numbering scheme for versions, where a
+ number "2.x.y" indicates a stable release '2.x', maintenance
+ release 'y'. In other words, LyX 2.2.0 was the first stable
+ release in the 2.2-series of LyX. At the time of writing, the
+ latest maintenance release in the 2.2-series was LyX 2.2.3.
+
+ Please note that maintenance releases are designed primarily to
+ fix bugs, and that the file format will _never_ change due to a
+ maintenance release.
+
+ In addition to the stable releases and maintenance releases, some
+ users may want to give a ''release candidate'' a try. This is a
+ release that should be stable enough for daily work, but yet may
+ be potentially unstable. If no major bugs are found, the release
+ candiate is soon released as the first stable release in a a new
+ series. To summarize, there are three possible types of file names
+ that are of interest to normal users:
+
+ lyx-2.2.0.tar.gz -- stable release, first in the 2.2-series
+ lyx-2.2.3.tar.gz -- fifth maintenance release of LyX 2.2
+ lyx-2.3.0rc1.tar.gz -- potentially unstable release candidate
+
+ Note that the goal is not parallel development as for the linux
+ kernel --the team is too small to afford that-- but rather to
+ include all the simple and safe bug fixes. This is so that the
+ maintenance burden on us is not too high, and so that system
+ administrators can install new releases without fear. Experience
+ shows that these releases will contain a few new features, and
+ that the bulk of the patches will be documentation updates.
+
+ If you get the source from Git, the version string will look like
+ one of:
+
+ 2.2.4dev -- this is the stable branch on which maintenance
+ release 2.2.4 will eventually be tagged.
+ 2.3.0dev -- this is the main branch on which stable
+ release 2.3.0 will eventually be tagged.