=pod =head1 NAME Moose::Manual::Support - Policies regarding support, releases, and compatibility. =head1 RELEASE SCHEDULE Moose uses the release early, release often philosophy. Moose is not released on a schedule. Releases happen as new features and bug fixes are required. Moose has historically been released fairly often, and most releases include just a few features or bug fixes. =head1 DEPRECATION POLICY Moose has always prioritized correctness over performance and backwards compatibility. Major deprecations or API changes are first documented in the Changes file as well as in L Moose then attempts to warn for deprecated features and API changes for a reasonable number of releases before breaking any tested API. Moose will also warn during installation if the version being installed will break a known installed dependency. Unfortunately due to the nature of the Perl install process these warnings may be easy to miss. =head1 BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY We try to ensure compatibility by having a extensive test suite (last count just over around 5123 tests), as well as testing a number of packages (currently just under 100 packages) that depend on Moose before any release. The current list of downstream dependencies that are tested is in C. =head1 VERSION NUMBERS Moose's version numbers are monotonically incrementing two decimal values. The version numbers in Moose are I semantic. This means that version 1.00 will be the hundredth release, nothing more. Occasionally, we will release a test release with a version like 0.90_03. These versions may be less stable than non-test releases, and exist so that developers can test potentially code-breaking changes. By default, the CPAN client will not install a distribution which has an underscore in its version. Moose was declared production ready at version 0.18 (via L<< http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=608144 >>). =head1 CONTRIBUTING Moose has an open contribution policy. Anybody is welcome to submit a patch. Please see L for more details. =cut