Day 0: Init new development cycle

To be done until: 2024-10-20 (sunday)

• Create a new GitHub milestone for DietPi code https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi/milestones
• Create a new GitHub milestone for DietPi docs https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi-Docs/milestones
• DietPi: Select issues for the new iteration in the new milestone and check for closed milestones from previous iteration
• DietPi-Docs: Select issues for the new iteration in the new milestone and check for closed milestones from previous iteration
• Create a new section in the DietPi Wiki
• A new development cycle starts with a subversion increment, or major version increment when we drop support for an old Debian version or old DietPi versions. The RC version during the development cycle is "-1", to clearly identify unstable version strings. -> Edit version
• Init CHANGELOG.txt (in the dev branch)
• Add support to DietPi-Survey_report: Search for last release, e.g. aSOFTWARE_NAME9_0
• Init dietpi-globals (in the dev branch) with G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE, G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB, G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC identical to the values in file version (see above)

3rd week: Beta phase

To be done until: 2024-11-07 (thursday)

• Merge live patches from master and remove in dev.
• Create pull requests for all required documentation changes:

To be done at: 2024-11-09 (saturday)

• Launch the initial beta as .0 RC version
• Advertise on GitHub
• Advertise on DietPi Forum with tag "beta"
• Advertise on DietPi-Banner MOTD

To be done at: 2024-11-10 (sunday)

• Advertise on website slider: https://dietpi.com/
• Advertise on X (DietPi account)
• Advertise on Facebook (DietPi group)

To be done from: 2024-11-10 - 2024-11-14 (thursday)

• Address bug reports with further beta iterations, e.g. .1 and .2 RC versions

2 days before the release

To be done until: 2024-11-14 (thursday)

• Have a release PR open on the main repo which needs to be linked from the changelog/release notes.
• Assure that update server version and DietPi-Globals default version match.
• Have the docs release PR ready and reviewed, with release notes and required changes.
• Have a PR on the website ready to advertise the new release via website slide and have the docs PRs all ready and reviewed.

Release

To be done at: 2024-11-16 (saturday)

• Make the release
• Close beta topic in forum: https://dietpi.com/forum/tag/beta
• Publish the release notes in DietPi Docs (i.e. merge the release notes PR, do it as "Merge pull request" and not as "Squash & Merge")
• Trigger the documentation page update
• Link the release notes from website slider
• Update the MOTD
• Update software list in DietPi Wiki - software list
• If new sofware titles were introduced: Check ports in DietPi Wiki - port usage

Release announcements

To be done at: 2024-11-17 (sunday)

• Publish on Twitter (DietPi account)
• Publish on several Facebook groups (e.g. DietPi group)
• Announce on Hacker News and Reddit
• Forge and spread a press release
• Determine if a hotfix release is needed
• Create a new release plan
• Wikipedia page update (resp. Wikidata)