Scope
- Due to ongoing development features will evolve and sometimes will be replaced by different functions.
- Therefore, features become deprecated. This article explains the procedure with which we handle this situation.
Lifecycle
Deprecated Feature
- Depreciation announcements are included in each release if applicable.
- Starting from the announcement the deprecated feature is still supported for the current release.
Unsupported Feature
- End of support announcements are included with each release if applicable.
- With the following release a deprecated feature becomes an unsupported feature, i.e. should problems occur then they will not be fixed.
- The functionality is still usable.
Removed Feature
- Feature removal announcements are included with each release if applicable.
- Later release will remove unsupported features. Removal
Example
- Lifecycle
- A feature is announced as being deprecated with release 1.8
- This feature will still be included in all maintenance releases1.8.1, 1.8.2 etc.
- A subsequent release 1.9 will declare this feature being unsupported
- This feature will still be included in all maintenance releases1.9.1, 1.9.2 etc.
- No support is provided should an unsupported feature break in a release 1.9 or later
- A subsequent release 1.10 or later may remove this feature
- A feature is announced as being deprecated with release 1.8
- Explanation
- Between releases usually about three months will pass.
- This means that you will have about six months to modify you configuration and to upgrade to replacement features.