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Dear MonetDB users and developers (and those who want to become either or both ;-),

In preparation for the release of the new

MonetDB-4.6.0 & MonetDB-SQL-2.6.0

(planned for February 14 2005, cf. http://monetdb.cwi.nl/Development/Roadmap/), I just prepared the respective

release-candidate branches "MonetDB_4-6" & "SQL_2-6"

in our CVS repository on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=56967). The first release-candidate versions are

tagged as "MonetDB_4-6-0_rc0" & "SQL_2-6-0_rc0",

respectively.

Pre-packaged source- & binary-distributions are not available, yet, but they will be made available for download with in a few days, and announced separately.

All users are highly advised (actually "requested" ;-) to use the new release-candidate( branche)s as of now (see below for details concerning CVS checkout/update).

Please do not hesitate to ask for support and report bugs or problems, preferably via the bug tracing system at SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=56967&atid=482468) or via email to monet@cwi.nl; however, please always state clearly, which version of MonetDB-SQL you are using (as the Mserver tells you at startup)!

Any support for the now obsolete "MonetDB-4.4.x" & "MonetDB-SQL_2.4.x" will stop as of now.

Contents: =========

- Background - Change Logs - CVS update - CVS check-ins - Testing

Background ==========

Trying to stick to our road-map (http://monetdb.cwi.nl/Development/Roadmap/), we plan the release of MonetDB-4.6.0 + MonetDB-SQL-2.6.0 for February 14 2004.

As with earlier "pre-releases" of MonetDB & MonetDB-SQL, we start with "release-candidates" to allow testing by a larger group of users before we finally make the actual releases. Hence, starting to use the release-candidates as soon as possible will only be for your own benefit ;-)

According to our TestWeb (http://monetdb.cwi.nl/Development/TestWeb/), both MonetDB and SQL are doing quite well right now; hence, I don't expect any (major) problems.

Change Logs ===========

Information about the major changes since MonetDB-4.4.2 / MonetDB-SQL_2.4.2 will follow with the pre-packaged source- & binary-distributions within a few days.

CVS update ==========

If you are already using the release branches "MonetDB_4-4-0" and "SQL_2-4-0" from CVS, simply run "cvs update -dP" to update your code to this new release candidate version.

If you are already using a CVS version of MonetDB/MonetDB-SQL, you can run either "cvs update -dP -rMonetDB_4-6-0_rc0" "cvs update -dP -rSQL_2-6-0_rc0" to get this very release candidate, or "cvs update -dP -rMonetDB_4-6" "cvs update -dP -rSQL_2-6" to get the most recent version in the release candidate branch. The difference is, that via the first option, you are "stuck" with this very release candidate, i.e., future "cvs update -dP" (without "-r..." or "-A") will not change your checked-out version; via the second option, however, future "cvs update -dP" will get you again the latest version in the release candidate branch.

CVS check-ins =============

All bug fixes (and only these!) on MonetDB and/or SQL are bound to go to the new release-candidate branches ("MonetDB_4-6"/"SQL_2-6"), only. On a regular basis, I will then take care of propagating these bug-fixes back to the respective main branch.

All new features are bound to go to the main branches (and only there!).

This release-candidate branch will become the new stable/release branch within the next 3 weeks.

Testing =======

Nightly automatic testing will proceed "as usual". See http://monetdb.cwi.nl/Development/TestWeb/ for details.

As usually, any (constructive;-) comments and feedback are more than welcome!

Enjoy!

Stefan