API changes/release cycle impact on development

All together, it would be very nice that further release would focus on fixing core issues that prevent users to actually use NextCloud instead of asking developers to adjust to new version every few months without time to stabilize the previous one

I maintained before a Notes app but I gave up maintaining it as new major version include strong changes and I can’t keep up with the speed of the changes in the API while trying to fix the app bugs or improvments needed.

I believe the maintainer of the Calendar has also plenty of work on maintaining the calendar module, but if core version changes every 2 months, then this is really not sustainable.

Maybe new version shall appear, say, every 6 months or once a year year, so all developpers can at least stabilize their own work ?

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I agree with @grosjo
One major in a year is enough, the monthly updates should be a bug fixing releases.

It is discussed here in my thread about this topic: Nextcloud Quality and Release-Cycles

The quality of the core and the apps is bad. Version for version more features and more bugs. Bugs are not fixed for years. The developers won’t update their apps (e. g. OfficeOnline, since month no version for v28 available! The latest release with support for v28 is not useable but online). We need to change our release plan to optimize NextCloud and bring back vibes to our users and customers

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Thing is that many are complaining about release cycles. If you are enterprise you have a more stable Nextcloud.

Many complain and some are pointing to bugs. Some are pointing to things that had no report attached.

Stuff is getting fixed. And they are getting better. But only if we ad a community help out and contribute on GitHub.

There is a fine balance between bugs and features. If there are knew features then people will complain and leave. If there are to many new features and less bug fixes people will complain and leave.

I do agree to some extent that 3 major a year might be a bit much. But on the other hand even if they have one major per year they still need to create new features for that major. That eats time. Or they spend time to fix bugs and then we have no features.

I have focused my time on bugs that affects my clients. Office online is one of them. Bug is fixed, but the fix is not released (I do run NC 28 with office online at a few places and it works with the patch)

Find a strategy to be engaged on bugs at GitHub, that does help.

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I split this off a bit because @grosjo was mentioning the impact of release planning for app developers. That is a crucial point because there are a lot of community apps and not many/enough people maintaining them.

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