Maintenance Policy for Ruby on Rails

Support of the Rails framework is divided into four groups: New features, bug fixes, security issues, and severe security issues. They are handled as follows, all versions, except for security releases, in X.Y.Z, format.

Versioning

Rails follows a shifted version of semver:

Patch Z

Only bug fixes, no API changes, no new features. Except as necessary for security fixes.

Minor Y

New features, may contain API changes (Serve as major versions of Semver). Breaking changes are paired with deprecation notices in the previous minor or major release.

Major X

New features, will likely contain API changes. The difference between Rails' minor and major releases is the magnitude of breaking changes, and usually reserved for special occasions.

New Features

New features are only added to the main branch and will not be made available in point releases.

Bug Fixes

Only the latest release series will receive bug fixes. Bug fixes are typically added to the main branch, and backported to the x-y-stable branch of the latest release series if there is sufficient need. When enough bugs fixes have been added to an x-y-stable branch, a new patch release is built from it. For example, a theoretical 1.2.2 patch release would be built from the 1-2-stable branch.

In special situations, where someone from the Core Team agrees to support more series, they are included in the list of supported series.

For unsupported series, bug fixes may coincidentally land in a stable branch, but won't be released in an official version. It is recommended to point your application at the stable branch using Git for unsupported versions.

Currently included series: 7.2.Z.

Security Issues

The current release series and the next most recent one will receive patches and new versions in case of a security issue.

These releases are created by taking the last released version, applying the security patches, and releasing. Those patches are then applied to the end of the x-y-stable branch. For example, a theoretical 1.2.2.1 security release would be built from 1.2.2, and then added to the end of 1-2-stable. This means that security releases are easy to upgrade to if you're running the latest version of Rails.

Only direct security patches will be included in security releases. Fixes for non-security related bugs resulting from a security patch may be published on a release's x-y-stable branch, and will only be released as a new gem in accordance with the Bug Fixes policy.

Security releases are cut from the last security release branch/tag. Otherwise there could be breaking changes in the security release. A security release should only contain the changes needed to ensure the app is secure so that it's easier for applications to remain upgraded.

Currently included series: 7.2.Z, 7.1.Z.

Severe Security Issues

For severe security issues all releases in the current major series, and also the last release in the previous major series will receive patches and new versions. The classification of the security issue is judged by the core team.

Currently included series: 7.2.Z, 7.1.Z, 7.0.Z, 6.1.Z.

Unsupported Release Series

When a release series is no longer supported, it's your own responsibility to deal with bugs and security issues. We may provide backports of the fixes and merge them, however there will be no new versions released. We recommend to point your application at the stable branch using Git. If you are not comfortable maintaining your own versions, you should upgrade to a supported version.

npm Packages

Due to a constraint with npm, we are unable to use the 4th digit for security releases of npm packages provided by Rails. This means that instead of the equivalent gem version 7.0.1.4, the npm package will be versioned 7.0.1-4.

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