All releases from sysctl will be announced to customers at least one week before the actual release date of the new software. The release announcement includes a more general description about the release and the technical changes.
At the time of the release sysctl will publish the technical changes for the release on sysctl.se.
If there is a known issue that could affect customers a patch release might be released on shorter notice. A patch release will always be announced before the time of the release.
Releases can include several different software updates but even if not all packages have been changed it might get a new version and be included in the release. This is done to make it easier to know which version is used.
A major version is only released after major changes. Sysctl focuses on small releases to avoid bugs and regressions, this will have the impact that most of the releases will be minor releases.
This is the normal release that can include improvements and new features.
A patch release will only include cherry-pickeded fixes for specific bug fixes. A patch release will only handle an issue that can break the function or fix some sort of issue that can not wait to the next planned release.
All softwares developed by sysctl use the semantic version explained below. Third party software packaged and signed by sysctl will use the upstream version but prefixed with sysctl-
All softwares developed by sysctl use one of the two following semantics
name-X.Y.Z-buildnumber-architecture.rpm
name-subname-X.Y.Z-buildnumber-architecture.rpm
X, Y and Z describes the kind of release
X = Major version
Y = Minor version
Z = Patch version
or
name-YY.MM.DD-buildnumber-architecture.rpm
name-subname-YY.MM.DD-buildnumber-architecture.rpm
YY, MM and DD describes the time of the release
YY = Year
MM = Month
DD = Day
Example:
impex-2.3.0-1584658158.noarch.rpm
eset-21.03.10-1584658158.x86_64.rpm
The buildnumber is the epoch time during build, number of seconds after 1 January 1970.
The architecture is either noarch or x86_64 depending on the required architecture.
Any third party software that sysctl packages will be prefixed with sysctl- and everything after will use the upstream name and version
The minor number can be incremented in the upstream software version when sysctl add patches to the code.
Example:
sysctl-pmount-0.9.23-13.el7.centos.x86_64.rpm