Lazarus Development

More than three months (and 1500 revisions) have passed since the latest Lazarus release, so it is time for a new release. Lazarus trunk has now gtk2 as default widget set on Linux and is not yet in a releasable state. Further, gtk2 on newer Linux distros, requires fpc 2.2.4, which has not been released yet. The first release candidate is expected in the coming week(s). So I don't expect the final fpc 2.2.4 release before March. Waiting for fpc 2.2.4 would mean waiting for the next Lazarus release till April or May.

Fortunately, selected revisions from trunk have been merged to the fixes 0.9.26 branch, which actually has become more than just fixes, also 'stable', finished features from 0.9.27 have been merged, such as the use frames and the project icon.

This release can been regarded as an experiment with time based releases. Trunk releases usually have been scheduled to follow a fpc release or some finished feature and bug fixes. The exact timing of such releases was hard to predict. I tried to keep the fixes 0.9.26 branch always in a releasable state, so for example the switch to gtk2 has not been merged, because that depends on a fpc release.

I think the challenge with this release is the testing. The fixes branch is (almost?) not used by the Lazarus developers and I doubt that Lazarus snapshot users use 0.9.26.1 snapshots as much 0.9.27 snapshots. I want to ask you to try these 0.9.26.1 snapshots and report any regressions compared to the 0.9.26 release.

If everything goes well, we have a 0.9.26.2 release next month. Keep an eye on the release plan.

Today I tagged the 0.9.26 version of Lazarus. In the coming week we will do the release building, some testing and preparing the announcement.

Lazarus svn trunk now contains version 0.9.27 and there is a new fixes_0_9_26 branch with 0.9.26.1.

The list of open issues for Lazarus 0.9.26 is getting smaller by the day. Most are fixed. Some are re-targeted to 0.9.28, if we estimate it takes too long fix them now. Some are re-targeted to 1.0.0, if closer inspection turns out the bug is not a regression.

Some issue are in the status feedback. This means that the Lazarus developers are waiting for information from the issue reporters to be able to fix the issue or for confirmation that the bug already has been fixed in the meantime. I'd like to ask people who have submitted bug to check their reports and give the necessary feedback.

Translators are requested to check the translations for new or modified strings, so we can release Lazarus with up to date translations.

FPC 2.2.2 has been released. In the coming time we will focus on fixing the regressions in Lazarus 0.9.25 and release 0.9.26. There are still about 15 issues to be fixed.

If you don't want to have nasty surprises, when Lazarus 0.9.26 is released, grab one of the snapshots and test it.

The first release candidate of FPC 2.2.2 has been released. The Lazarus team is waiting for the release of FPC 2.2.2, because it needs it for the Unicode support for the win32 widget set. We intend to release Lazarus 0.9.26 soon after FPC 2.2.2 has been released.

People who want to test this release candidate with Lazarus, can download a Lazarus snapshot. The last week have replaced all fpc 2.2.0 based snapshots with fpc 2.2.2rc1 based snapshots.

Don't wait too long with testing, because 30 June will start the code freeze in preparation of the RC2. Hopefully this is the final release candidate for FPC 2.2.2, so we can have a FPC release before the end of July. Another release candidate will delay the release about a month. So test well, and report any regressions before the end of June.