We're pleased to announce that JBoss EJB3 is making the final push towards 1.0.0-GA, and will soon be implementing a timeboxed release schedule. ==================== || Current Status || ==================== Released Friday morning, 1.0.0-Beta12 of the EJB3/AS Integration Module (org.jboss.ejb3:jboss-ejb3-as-int:1.0.0-Beta12) is now in AS: * trunk * Branch_5_x * Branch_5_0 This is likely the last of the 1.0.0-BetaX series, and pending the completion of all Hudson runs to expected results, will be re-cut as 1.0.0-CR1 this weekend. Criteria for EJB3 1.0.0-CR1 is: * No regression in TCK * No regression in AS TestSuite * Passes EJB3 Integration TestSuite 100% (excluding transient failures and identified known issues) After a standard 1-week(ish) incubation period, CR1 (assuming all is well) will be promoted to 1.0.0-GA sometime Thursday/Friday, 23 January, and will be integrated will all active branches of AS. This targets AS 5.0.1 to include EJB3 1.0.0-GA. ======================== || Timeboxed Releases || ======================== After the 1.0.0-GA Release of the EJB3 Projects, we will continue to push releases both to the community and into AS active branches at a resolution of twice a month[1]. The EJB3 Team has not yet agreed upon a formal schedule (ie. every 1st and 3rd Monday will lead to occasional gaps in cases where a month has 5 Mondays). After we've set this, we'll reply back to this list with a commitment upon which the community and dependent projects (ie. AS, WebBeans) may rely. Additionally, we'll be using a true timebox methodology[2]; bug fixes and feature requests that are not completed in time for release will be bumped to the next development cycle. We will make every effort to not delay a release in order to get further improvements incorporated, barring exceptional circumstances. ================= || EJB3 Plugin || ================= In addition to updating AS, we'll be re-introducing the concept of the "EJB3 Plugin"[3]. The EJB3 Plugin is currently implemented as an executable JAR which will patch an existing AS installation with the latest EJB3 binaries (and dependent projects[4]). Usage looks like: shell $> java -jar jboss-ejb3-plugin.jar $JBOSS_HOME We will keep each release of the Plugin backwards-compatible with the latest release of AS. Therefore the first release will work against AS 5.0.0.GA, and after 5.0.1.GA is released the Plugin will target 5.0.1.GA *only*. This is to: * Give users the latest and greatest * Limit the scope of development resources needed to continually deliver (by supporting only one target AS version). * Encourage community members to embrace the "release early, release often" intent of .org =================================== ||Implications for the Community || =================================== Because we're moving to a reliable, repeatable release schedule, community members interested in helping the development process can be assured that their contributions will be made available as a binary within 2 weeks. Your efforts might take the form of: * Failing use cases / bug reports * Unit / Integration Tests * Documentation * Enhancements / patches We encourage you to get involved. S, ALR References: [1] I avoid the term "bimonthly": http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bimonthly [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_boxing [3] http://jboss.org/community/docs/DOC-9564, once released, will be updated to show end-user usage separately from concepts interesting to developers [4] Sometimes we must also update projects technically outside EJB3 scope, ie. jboss-metadata, jboss-jpa-deployers -- Andrew Lee Rubinger Sr. Software Engineer JBoss, a division of Red Hat, Inc. http://exitcondition.alrubinger.com