Release Sets

We make a list of what modules will be released, and group them into appropriate Release Sets. At the moment there are 3 release sets:

New modules decisions

At the start of every 6-month release cycle there are usually some new modules that people think should be added to the one of the release sets. The release-team encourages discussion of these new modules on the desktop-devel-list at gnome.org mailing list and tries to find consensus. Although the release team writes the final list, we do not really decide what new modules will be accepted - we just try to interpret the wishes of the development community. For instance, it is not unusual for members of the release team to disagree personally with the final decision.

Only module maintainers can offically nominate their modules, though other people can encourage them to do this.

GNOME Platform

The GNOME Platform libraries provides APIs on which GNOME applications can be developed. They make a commitment to API and ABI stability within minor GNOME releases (e.g. all GNOME 2.x releases), allowing parallel installation when making API changes (e.g a future GNOME 3). Non-breaking API additions are allowed between GNOME releases phases (e.g. between GNOME 2.0 and GNOME 2.2).

See the Platform module requirements.

GNOME Desktop

The GNOME Desktop consists mostly of applications and utilities that provide the user's desktop environment. Some libraries are included in GNOME Desktop, because they are used by GNOME Desktop applications, but they are not subject to strict API/ABI rules until they move into the GNOME Platform release set.

See the general module requirements.

GNOME Platform Bindings

The GNOME Platform Bindings provide a development platform for programming languages other than C. The GNOME Platform Bindings API/ABI rules are very similar to those for the GNOME Platform.

See the Platform Bindings module requirements.

GNOME Admin

The GNOME Admin release set consists of applications useful for system administrators or deployers. This set follows the exact same rules as the GNOME Desktop release set.

See the general module requirements.

GNOME Developer Tools

The GNOME Developer Tools are a set of tools geared towards developers, to help them build applications for the GNOME Desktop. This set follows the exact same rules as the GNOME Desktop release set.

See the general module requirements.

GNOME Mobile

The GNOME Mobile libraries provides APIs to form the basis of an application platform for mobile platforms. More details can be found on the GNOME Mobile website.

See the general module requirements.