Release Overview

JavaComm uses a milestone-based, cumulative release model.

Each ticket is assigned to a specific milestone, representing the version in which the change will be released.
Milestones follow a date-based version scheme and indicate the current phase: Development, Prerelease (PRE), Release (REL), Postrelease (POST), or CandidateLib.

• Development: active work on upcoming features and tickets.
• Prerelease: a frozen snapshot of a milestone. Prerelease versions are cumulative and include all changes from previous milestones.
• Release: a frozen snapshot provided as a reference version. Release is also cumulative and contains all changes up to that point.
• Postrelease: bugfixes applied after a release milestone.
• CandidateLib: an isolated branch created from a frozen milestone (typically Prerelease or Release).
  No application code changes are made in this branch. CandidateLib is used exclusively to validate new or updated third-party libraries against a stable code base, ensuring that library changes can be identified as the cause of regressions or incompatibilities.

When a new milestone begins in Development (e.g., 260206-PRE5), the previous milestone (e.g., 260206-PRE4) is frozen and retained.
All milestones are cumulative and self-contained. Development continues in new milestone branches while previous milestones remain unchanged.

Note: The release management model is fully reflected in the Subversion (SVN) repository.
The top-level branches in SVN correspond to the milestones:
- /Development
- /Prerelease
- /Release
- /Postrelease
- /CandidateLib

This model ensures reproducibility, controlled library validation, cumulative progress, and continuous development, with a clear separation between development work, frozen milestones, and isolated library compatibility checks.