EE moving to new release schedule

I was alerted to this information by a tweet by Brendon Carr that EllisLab is moving to a new release cycle. This isn’t a new announcement. They have previously said that releases are changing and it was starting soon. But up until now we haven’t had many details.

In the forums Leslie Camacho expanded more on that in a thread about the File Manager:

We have the last beta scheduled for release next week. In EE 2.2, scheduled for early June (we’ll confirm publicly later in May), we’ll have fully moved to a new release process, bug fixing process, and testing process. The goal of all this is to have a stable release that is always that, stable and have a “tip” release that represents the cutting edge but is definitely for playground, EE devs, etc… who want to use it as a way to help influence EE’s direction and make the stable version better.

EE 2.2 will have the initial release of the new File Manager in the stable version and a significant reduction in bugs in the stable release (as opposed to the beta). With EE 2.2 we’ll also have an improved Forecast page as well based on an 8 week release cycle so you can better plan client upgrades/maintenance.(emphasis mine)

So, some good nuggets of information in there. First, EE 2.2 is scheduled to be out in about a month and this will include the “initial release” of the new File Manager (which is a redo of the new EE2 File Manager, see more in our File Manager Beta Gallery from February). Second, they will be aiming to release EE updates on regular 8 week schedule.

Good news all around, I think.