This document states the current development activities of the project and establishes the estimated release schedule
for the foreseeable future. It's getting periodically updated in order to be in line with the reality.
The project's development resources are currently dedicated to the v2.5 and v3.0 versions,
with v2.0 and v2.1 versions being maintained on the regular basis.
As notified earlier, the v1.5.x series is not being released anymore. Firebird 1.5.6 was the last release of that series
officially published by the project. However, its codebase may still collect some bugfixes occasionally
backported from the newer versions. Any subsequent binary releases, should they be necessary, would be available from
IBPhoenix on a commercial basis.
For more details about the anticipated releases, read on.
Maintenance Releases
Currently supported stable releases are: Firebird 2.0 (appeared in 2006) and Firebird 2.1 (appeared in 2008).
Series 2.0.x
The release policy for these versions declares a maintenance cycle of one point release per year.
The preferred changes are critical and generic bugfixes, performance regression fixes.
The latest point release currently available is v2.0.5. Explore its
download location or
documentation.
v2.0.6 is the next point release to come, it's scheduled for Q1 2010.
Follow the "Track Details" icon for the list of bugfixes scheduled for this version.
Series 2.1.x
The release policy for these versions declares a maintenance cycle of two point releases per year.
All kinds of bugfixes and performance improvements happen inside its codebase, including ports to new platforms.
The latest point release currently available is v2.1.3. Explore its
download location or
documentation.
v2.1.4 is the next point release to come, it's scheduled for Q2 2010.
Follow the "Track Details" icon for a list of bugfixes scheduled for this version.
One more maintenance release is expected to be published this year (approximately Q4 2010).
Current Release: version 2.5
Firebird 2.5 is currently in the Release Candidate stage, thus implying a
"feature freeze" rule.
It's getting finalized based on the field test reports, only bugfixes are allowed.
RC2 has been published recently, RC3 will follow.
It's somewhat hard to predict whether further release candidate builds would be required, as it depends on the public testing results.
As a rough estimate, the final release is expected to appear in Q2 2010.
Detailed information about new features and improvements can be found in the release notes.
Click the icon on the right side to see the bugs fixed for the upcoming RC3.
New Development: version 3.0
Firebird 3.0 represents the project's next milestone release and it currently gets the most of the development efforts.
It's going to offer some important and highly anticipated features that were promised for a long time already.
Key points:
- Revised architecture, including new authentication and configuration subsystems
- Scalable (SMP/multi-core friendly) multi-threaded engine with the shared page cache
- New ODS (version 12) with new system and monitoring tables
- External (Java, C++, etc) stored procedures/triggers/functions
- Reworked optimizer and new data access methods
- Security enhancements
- Various SQL extensions
The complete feature set is not agreed on yet, so please follow the
development mailing list if you're interested.
You're also welcome to vote for your favorite tickets in the Firebird Issue Tracker.
Schedule:
- Initial (unstable) public builds are already available
- We hope to see Alpha 1 released in Q2 2010
Unstable v3.0 builds can be downloaded from the
snapshot area.
Please beware that the ODS (on-disk structure) hasn't been finalized yet, so databases could be incompatible
between different unstable builds and you'll have to either recreate them or migrate them via backup/restore.
Use the "Track Details" icon to discover the list of tasks currently scheduled for v3.0 Alpha 1.
