Django 1.8 Roadmap

This document details the schedule and roadmap towards Django 1.8.

What will be in Django 1.8?

Whatever gets committed by TBA!

Django 1.8 will be a fully time-based release; any features completed and checked in by the feature freeze deadline (TBA) will be included. Any that miss the deadline won't. The Django core team has a couple of major features we'd like to merge:

• contrib.postgres - Marc Tamlyn
• multiple template engines - Aymeric Augustin
• model _meta API - Daniel Pyrathon (GSoC project)
• Use F() objects in aggregates(), annotates() and values() - Josh Smeaton

Minor features and bug fixes will be committed as they are completed. If you have submitted a patch, be sure the flags on the Trac ticket are correct such that it appears in the "Patches needing review" filter of the Django Development Dashboard. Better yet, find someone to review your patch and mark the ticket as "Ready for checkin".

Schedule

Major milestones along the way to 1.8 are scheduled below. See Process, below, for more details. The dates are subject to change as necessary.

TBA	Django 1.8 alpha; major feature freeze.
TBA	Django 1.8 beta; complete feature freeze.
TBA	Django 1.8 RC 1; translation string freeze.
2+ weeks after RC1	Django 1.8 final (or RC 2, if needed).

Process

Any code not complete by feature freeze dates won't make it into 1.8.

XXX, as the release manager, will be in charge of keeping the schedule. The release manager keeps track of who's working on what issues so that bug reports can be efficiently routed and also nag developers who are in danger of missing deadlines. XXX will serve as a backup release manager.

Feature freeze / Alpha 1

All major features must be committed by the Alpha 1 deadline. Any work not done by this point will be deferred or dropped.

Beta 1

Beta 1 marks the end of any feature work. Only bug fixes will be allowed in after this point.

RC 1

RC 1 will become the final release if no bugs are found; there is a total code freeze after this point, unless a new RC is needed.

RC 1 also marks string freeze; translators will have two weeks to submit updated translations for inclusion in the final release.

Release

Django 1.8 final will ship two weeks after the last RC. Hopefully we'll only need a single RC, so, the final release will follow roughly a week after RC 1. If blockers are found, another RC will be released instead.

How you can help

The only way we'll meet these deadlines is with a great deal of community effort. To that end, here's how you can help:

• Read the guide to contributing to Django and the guide to Django's release process.

  These guides explains how our process works. where to ask questions, etc. It'll save everyone time if we're all on the same page when it comes to process.

• Work on patches and triage tickets.

• Attend a sprint (in person or in IRC).

• Test the release snapshots (alphas, betas) against your code and report bugs.

• We need lots of testers if we're to have a bug-free release. Download a snapshot or a git checkout and give it a try!