The new Joomla versions roadmap
The roadmap to Joomla bliss
If you use Joomla you are no doubt confused about the direction that the Joomla versions are taking. I admit, I work with Joomla daily and it has been confusing for even me to follow. If you Google “Joomla roadmap” the first result is from 2007, and the rest of the results are just as topical.
You won’t find much helpful info until you look for “Joomla versions“, and even then it’s not official info, it’s blog posts from other Joomla companies. No matter, I’m happy to see Joomla is progressing in the right direction finally.
The official Joomla channel posted this video showing the detailed Joomla roadmap and explains the new Joomla versions in detail.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCrbPZpek3s[/youtube]
If you cannot watch the video, in a nutshell, Ron Severdia of the Production Leadership Team explains the versions and Sandy Ordonez asks various questions.
Joomla will go from 1.7 -> 1.8 -> 2.0. Minor releases will be 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and long term releases will end in .5. So a long term release will be 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 for example. These long term releases will be supported for 18 months. Minor releases will not have new features, just bug and security fixes. Long term releases will have bug and security fixes, as well as potentially new toys and changes.
The most important takeaway from this is to make sure you upgrade to Joomla 1.7 as soon as possible. This will be the first version with one click updating from inside your administrator control panel. In a previous blog post I covered why you would want to upgrade soon. All in all, it will make your life easier and upgrades a snap.
Are the new Joomla versions confusing to you? Did this post help?
Luis Posselt
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I am with you Matt all these changes are confusing even for the experts and I can imagine how painful can be for the general user.
By the way the next release will be Joomla 2.5 and not 2.0 and that’s according to the Joomla Site.
Check this link: http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leadership/1479-the-version-votes-are-in.html
@Martin Ehrentraut – I think there will be an extension where you are going to be able to migrate from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5 but of course it will be more easier to upgrade from Joomla 1.7 to Joomla 2.5
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Cash Flow Trader
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Can’t wait for Joomla 2.5 release!
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Alfonzo Goodwill
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Luis is right. The vote indicate that we expect to see new release of 2.5 on Jan next year. It is really an exciting news!
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Maik
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I am a longtime (mambo) joomla user, call me a fan…
but v2.5 makes absolutely no sense to me. Even 2.0 would imply (and promise!) a total new experience and feature set! And by feature set, I mean visible new functions for the user… not under-the-hood-stuff for geeks and coders. Period.
Don´t get me wrong here, I am addicted to Joomla… but if a 2.x or higher release does not bring any major and true improvements (i.e. content types, fields, sub-templates for articles/categories…), I don´t believe in it anymore. Than i will definitely switch.
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Matt King
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It’s a move to a better versioning system than in the past. There are some minor features, which for Joomla are pretty helpful, but nothing to write home to mum about.
Long story short however, it’s the next step for Joomla. Stay on board or fall off.
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Simon Schick
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Does that mean you have only 4 bugfix-release possibilities? 😀
To me it sounds like completely crazy version numbering. When do you then decide when a System will be ready for a LTS?
And how long will a LTS be?
If you want, you can also take a look how other CMS handles that like TYPO3: http://typo3.org/teams/core/resources/maintenance-policy/
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